Footnotes Roundup: Government by Journalism, the Road to America

I have unfortunately hit a snag in trying to have the paper reviewed once more prior to releasing it. However, prior to release, I would like to round up all of the footnotes of the paper that are available publicly and list them here. There are other footnotes which are not public domain works and are not contained here, that I cannot control. But below is the entire list which is copyright expired.

The Significance Of Mr. Hearst, by Sydney Brooks

The great metropolis; a mirror of New York, by Junius Henri Browne

How we advertised America, by George Creel

The Triumph of an Idea, Harper's Weekly

Helping to Make a President, by William Inglis.

The American Newspaper, by Will Irwin

The Basic Problem of Democracy, by Walter Lippmann (Became chapter 1 of Liberty and the News)

Liberty and the News, by Walter Lippmann

Public Opinion, by Walter Lippmann

Yellow Press Has Served Purpose, by Walter Lippmann (see page 6)

The Associated Press, by Melville Stone

Upton Sinclair to John Beardsley, 1929

The Brass Check, by Upton Sinclair

A Character Sketch of William Randolph Hearst, by William Thomas Stead

Dr Jim and Co. in Holloway Gaol, by William Thomas Stead

The Future of Journalism, by William Thomas Stead

Government by Journalism, by William Thomas Stead

The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, by William Thomas Stead

I aim to make it easy for everybody to look at Journalism's history, examine it, and reference the ways in their own words they have decided to manipulate people. Other footnoted items include Drudge's original article about the Newsweek coverup, an article relating to the JournoList, Nelson Crawford's 1924 book "The Ethics of Journalism", Edward Bernay's book "Crystallizing Public Opinion", and a 1977 book about the Tet Offensive. One item that I did not footnote because it was such a well known story at the time is a small entry relating to Dan Rather's use of fake documents as an effort in Government by Journalism. Many of these and other footnotes are still in copyright, but I cite them briefly and with proper formatting as is common practice for research efforts of this type.

The Basic Problem of Democracy, by Walter Lippmann

THE BASIC PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY

WHAT MODERN LIBERTY MEANS

BY WALTER LIPPMANN

FROM our recent experience it is clear that the traditional liberties of speech and opinion rest on no solid foundation. At a time when the world needs above all other things the activity of generous imaginations and the creative leadership of planning and inventive minds, our thinking is shriveled with panic. Time and energy that should go to building and restoring are instead consumed in warding off the pin-pricks of prejudice and fighting a guerilla war against misunderstanding and intolerance. For suppression is felt, not simply by the scattered individuals who are actually suppressed. It reaches back into the steadiest minds, creating tension everywhere; and the tension of fear produces sterility. Men cease to say what they think; and when they cease to say it, they soon cease to think it. They think in reference to their critics and not in reference to the facts. For when thought becomes socially hazardous, men spend more time wondering about the hazard than they do in developing their thought. Yet nothing is more certain than that mere bold resistance will not permanently liberate men's minds. The problem is not only greater than that, but different, and the time is ripe for reconsideration. We have learned that many of the hard-won rights of man are utterly insecure. It may be that we cannot make them secure simply by imitating the earlier champions of liberty.

Something important about the human character was exposed by Plato when, with the spectacle of Socrates’s death before him, he founded Utopia on a censorship stricter than any which exists on this heavily censored planet. His intolerance seems strange. But it is really the logical expression of an impulse that most of us have not the candor to recognize. It was the service of Plato to formulate the dispositions of men in the shape of ideals, and the surest things we can learn from him are not what we ought to do, but what we are inclined to do. We are peculiarly inclined to suppress whatever impugns the security of that to which we have given our allegiance. If our loyalty is turned to what exists, intolerance begins at its frontiers; if it is turned, as Plato’s was, to Utopia, we shall find Utopia defended with intolerance.

There are, so far as I can discover, no absolutists of liberty; I can recall no doctrine of liberty, which, under the acid test, does not become contingent upon some other ideal. The goal is never liberty, but liberty for something or other. For liberty is a condition under which activity takes place, and men's interests attach themselves primarily to their activities and what is necessary to fulfil them, not to the abstract requirements of any activity that might be conceived.

And yet controversialists rarely take this into account. The battle is fought with banners on which are inscribed absolute and universal ideals. They are not absolute and universal in fact. No man has ever thought out an absolute or a universal ideal in politics, for the simple reason that nobody knows enough, or can know enough, to do it. We all use absolutes, because an ideal which seems to exist apart from time, space, and circumstance has a prestige that no candid avowal of special purpose can ever have. Looked at from one point of view universals are part of the fighting apparatus in men. What they desire enormously they easily come to call God’s will, or their nation’s purpose. Looked at genetically, these idealizations are probably born in that spiritual reverie where all men live most of the time. In reverie there is neither time, space, nor particular reference, and hope is omnipotent. This omnipotence, which is denied to them in action, nevertheless illuminates activity with a sense of utter and irresistible value.

The classic doctrine of liberty consists of absolutes. It consists of them except at the critical points where the author has come into contact with objective difficulties. Then he introduces into the argument, somewhat furtively, a reservation which liquidates its universal meaning and reduces the exalted plea for liberty in general to a special argument for the success of a special purpose.

There are at the present time, for instance, no more fervent champions of liberty than the western sympathizers with the Russian Soviet government. Why is it that they are indignant when Mr. Burleson suppresses a newspaper and complacent when Lenin does? And, vice versa, why is it that the antiBolshevist forces in the world are in favor of restricting constitutional liberty as a preliminary to establishing genuine liberty in Russia? Clearly the argument about liberty has little actual relation to the existence of it. It is the purpose of the social conflict, not the freedom of opinion, that lies close to the heart of the partisans. The word liberty is a weapon and an advertisement, but certainly not an ideal which transcends all special aims.

If there were any man who believed in liberty apart from particular purposes, that man would be a hermit contemplating all existence with a hopeful and neutral eye. For him, in the last analysis, there could be nothing worth resisting, nothing particularly worth attaining, nothing particularly worth defending, not even the right of hermits to contemplate existence with a cold and neutral eye. He would be loyal simply to the possibilities of the human spirit, even to those possibilities which most seriously impair its variety and its health. No such man has yet counted much in the history of politics. For what every theorist of liberty has meant is that certain types of behavior and classes of opinion hitherto regulated should be somewhat differently regulated in the future. What each seems to say is that opinion and action should be free; that liberty is the highest and most sacred interest of life. But somewhere each of them inserts a weasel clause to the effect that ‘of course’ the freedom granted shall not be employed too destructively. It is this clause which checks exuberance and reminds us that, in spite of appearances, we are listening to finite men pleading a special cause.

Among the English classics none are more representative than Milton’s Areopagitica and the essay On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. Of living men Mr. Bertrand Russell is perhaps the most outstanding advocate of ‘liberty.’ The three together are a formidable set of witnesses. Yet nothing is easier than to draw texts from each which can be cited either as an argument for absolute liberty or as an excuse for as much repression as seems desirable at the moment. Says Milton: —

Yet if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be? this doubtles is more wholsome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather than all compell’d.

So much for the generalization. Now for the qualification which follows immediately upon it.

I mean not tolerated Popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpats all religions and civill supremacies, so itself should be extirpat, provided first that all charitable and compassionat means he used to win and regain the weak and misled: that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or maners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw it self: but those neighboring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not. interrupt the unity of spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace.

With this as a text one could set up an inquisition. Yet it occurs in the noblest plea for liberty that exists in the English language. The critical point in Milton’s thought is revealed by the word ‘indifferences.’ The area Of opinion which he wished to free comprised the ‘neighboring differences’ of certain Protestant sects, and only these where they were truly ineffective in manners and morals. Milton, in short, had come to the conclusion that certain conflicts of doctrine were sufficiently insignificant to be tolerated. The conclusion depended far less upon his notion of the value of liberty than upon his conception of God and human nature and the England of his time. He urged indifference to things that were becoming indifferent.

If we substitute the word indifference for the word liberty, we shall come much closer to the real intention that lies behind the classic argument. Liberty is to be permitted where differences are of no great moment. It is this definition which has generally guided practice. In times when men feel themselves secure, heresy is cultivated as the spice of life. During a war liberty disappears as the community feels itself menaced. When revolution seems to be contagious, heresy-hunting is a respectable occupation. In other words, when men are not afraid, they are not afraid of ideas; when they are much afraid, they are afraid of anything that seems, or can even be made to appear, seditious. That is why nine tenths of the effort to live and let live consists in proving that the thing we wish to have tolerated is really a matter of indifference.

In Mill this truth reveals itself still more clearly. Though his argument is surer and completer than Milton’s, the qualification is also surer and completer.

Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve; and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual and through that to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded or asserted in spite of prohibition, let us next examine whether the same reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their opinions, to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either moral or physical, from their fellow men, so long as it is at their own risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act.

‘At their own risk and peril.’ In other words at the risk of eternal damnation. The premise from which Mill argued was that many opinions then under the ban of society were of no interest to society, and ought therefore not to be interfered with. The orthodoxy with which he was at war was chiefly theocratic. It assumed that a man’s opinions on cosmic affairs might endanger his personal salvation and make him a dangerous member of society. Mill did not believe in the theological view, did not fear damnation, and was convinced that morality did not depend upon the religious sanction. In fact, he was convinced that a more reasoned morality could be formed by laying aside theological assumptions. ‘But no one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions.’ The plain truth is that Mill did not believe that much action would result from the toleration of those opinions in which he was most interested.

Political heresy occupied the fringe of his attention, and he uttered only the most casual comments. So incidental are they, so little do they impinge on his mind, that the arguments of this staunch apostle of liberty can be used honestly, and in fact are used, to justify the bulk of the suppressions which have recently occurred. ‘Even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act.’ Clearly there is no escape here for Debs or Haywood or obstructors of Liberty Loans. The argument used is exactly the one employed in sustaining the conviction of Debs.

In corroboration Mill’s single concrete instance may be cited: ‘An opinion that com dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.’

Clearly Mill’s theory of liberty wore a different complexion when be considered opinions which might directly affect social order. Where the stimulus between opinion and act was effective he could say with entire complacency, ‘The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.’ Because Mill believed this, it is entirely just to infer that the distinction drawn between a speech or placard and circulation in the press would soon have broken down for Mill had he lived at a time when the press really circulated and the art of type-display had made a newspaper strangely like a placard.

On first acquaintance no man would seem to go further than Mr. Bertrand Russell in loyalty to what he calls ‘the unfettered development of all the instincts that build up life and fill it with mental delights.’ He calls these instincts ‘creative’; and against them he sets off the ‘possessive impulses.’ These, he says, should be restricted by ‘a public authority, a repository of practically irresistible force whose function should be primarily to repress the private use of force.’ Where Milton said no ‘ tolerated Popery,’ Mr. Russell says, no tolerated ‘possessive impulses.’ Surely he is open to the criticism that, like every authoritarian who has preceded him, he is interested in the unfettered development of only that which seems good to him. Those who think that ‘enlightened selfishness’ produces social harmony will tolerate more of the possessive impulses, and will be in~ clined to put certain of Mr. Russell’s creative impulses under lock and key.

The moral is, not that Milton, Mill, and Bertrand Russell are inconsistent, or that liberty is to be obtained by arguing for it without qualifications. The impulse to what we call liberty is as strong in these three men as it is ever likely to be in our society. The moral is of another kind. It is that the traditional core of liberty, namely, the notion of indifference, is too feeble and unreal a doctrine to protect the purpose of liberty, which is the furnishing of a healthy environment in which human judgment and inquiry can most successfully organize human life. Too feeble, because in time of stress nothing is easier than to insist, and by insistence to convince, that tolerated indifference is no longer tolerable because it has ceased to be indifferent.

II

It is clear that in a society where public opinion has become decisive, nothing that counts in the formation of it can really be a matter of indifference. When I say ‘can be,’ I am speaking literally. What men believed about the constitution of heaven became a matter of indifference when heaven disappeared in metaphysics; but what they believe about property, government, conscription, taxation, the origins of the late war, or the origins of the Franco-Prussian War, or the distribution of Latin culture in the vicinity of copper mines, constitutes the difference between life and death, prosperity and misfortune, and it will never on this earth be tolerated as indifferent, or not interfered with, no matter how many noble arguments are made for liberty, or how many martyrs give their lives for it. If widespread tolerance of opposing views is to be achieved in modern society, it will not be simply by fighting the Debs cases through the courts, and certainly not by threatening to upset those courts if they do not yield to the agitation. The task is fundamentally of another order, requiring other methods and other theories.

The world about which each man is supposed to have opinions has become so complicated as to defy his powers of understanding. What he knows of events that matter enormously to him, the purposes of governments, the aspirations of peoples, the struggle of classes, he knows at second, third, or fourth hand. He cannot go and see for himself. Even the things that are near to him have become too involved for his judgment. I know of no man, even among those who devote all of their time to watching public affairs, who can even pretend to keep track, at the same time, of his city government, his state government, Congress, the departments, the industrial situation, and the rest of the world. What men who make the study of politics a vocation cannot do, the man who has an hour a day for newspapers and talk cannot possibly hope to do. He must seize \catchwords and headlines or nothing.

This vast elaboration of the subject-matter of politics is the root of the whole problem. News comes from a distance; it comes helter-skelter, in inconceivable confusion; it deals with matters that are not easily understood; it arrives and is assimilated by busy and tired people who must take what is given to them. Any lawyer with a sense of evidence knows how unreliable such information must necessarily be.

The taking of testimony in a trial is hedged about with a thousand precautions derived from long experience of the fallibility of the witness and the prejudices of the jury. We call this, and rightly, a fundamental phase of human liberty. But in public affairs the stake is infinitely greater. It involves the lives of millions, and the fortune of everybody. The jury is everybody who creates public sentiment - chattering gossips, unscrupulous liars, congenital liars, feeble-minded people, prostitute minds, corrupting agents. To this jury any testimony is submitted, is submitted in any form, by any anonymous person, with no test of reliability, no test of credibility, and no penalty for perjury. If I lie in a lawsuit involving the fate of my neighbor’s cow, I can go to jail. But if I lie to a million readers in a matter involving war and peace, I can lie my head off, and, if I choose the right series of lies, be entirely irresponsible. Nobody will punish me if I lie about Japan, for example. I can announce that every Japanese valet is a reservist, and every Japanese art store a mobilization centre. I am immune. And if there should be hostilities with Japan, the more I lied the more popular I should be. If I asserted that the Japanese secretly drank the blood of children, that Japanese women were unchaste, that the Japanese were really not a branch of the human race after all, I guarantee that most of the newspapers would print it eagerly, and that I could get a hearing in churches all over the country. And all this for the simple reason that the public, when it is dependent on testimony and protected by no rules of evidence. can act only on the excitement of its pugnacities and its hopes.

The mechanism of the news-supply has developed without plan, and there is no one point in it at which one can fix the responsibility for truth. The fact is that the subdivision of labor is now accompanied by the subdivision of the news-organization. At one end of it is the eye-witness, at the other, the reader. Between the two is a vast, expensive transmitting and editing apparatus. This machine works marvelously well at times, particularly in the rapidity with which it can report the score of a game or a transatlantic flight, or the death of a monarch, or the result of an election. But where the issue is complex, as for example in the matter of the success of a policy, or the social conditions among a foreign people, - that is to say, where the real answer is neither yes nor no, but subtle and a matter of balanced evidence, - the subdivision of the labor involved in the report causes no end of derangement, misunderstanding, and even misrepresentation.

Thus the number of eye-witnesses capable of honest statement is inadequate and accidental. Yet the reporter making up his news is dependent upon the eye-witnesses. They may be actors in the event. Then they can hardly be expected to have perspective. Who, for example, if he put aside his own likes and dislikes would trust a Bolshevik’s account of what exists in Soviet Russia or an exiled Russian prince’s story of what exists in Siberia? Sitting just across the frontier, say in Stockholm, how is a reporter to write dependable news when his witnesses consist of emigrés or Bolshevist agents?

At the Peace Conference, news was given out by the agents of the conferees and the rest leaked through those who were clamoring at the doors of the Conference. Now the reporter, if he is to earn his living, must nurse his personal contacts with the eye-witnesses and privileged informants. If he is openly hostile to those in authority, he will cease to be a reporter unless there is an opposition party in the inner circle who can feed him news. Failing that, he will know precious little of what is going on.

Most people seem to believe that, when they meet a war correspondent or a special writer from the Peace Conference, they have seen a man who has seen the things he wrote about. Far from it. Nobody, for example, saw this war. Neither the men in the trenches nor the commanding general. The men saw their trenches, their billets, sometimes they saw an enemy trench, but nobody, unless it be the aviators, saw a battle. What the correspondents saw, occasionally, was the terrain over which a battle had been fought; but what they reported day by day was what they were told at press headquarters, and of that only what they were allowed to tell.

At the Peace Conference the reporters were allowed to meet periodically the four least important members of the Commission, men who themselves had considerable difficulty in keeping track of things, as any reporter who was present will testify. This was supplemented by spasmodic personal interviews with the commissioners, their secretaries, their secretaries’ secretaries, other newspaper men, and confidential representatives of the President, who stood between him and the impertinences of curiosity. This and the French press, than which there is nothing more censored and inspired, a local English trade-journal of the expatriates, the gossip of the Crillon lobby, the Majestic, and the other official hotels, constituted the source of the news upon which American editors and the American people have had to base one of the most difficult judgments of their history. I should perhaps add that there were a few correspondents occupying privileged positions with foreign governments. They wore ribbons in their button-holes to prove it. They were in many ways the most useful correspondents because they always revealed to the trained reader just what it was that their governments wished America to believe.

The news accumulated by the reporter from his witnesses has to be selected, if for no other reason than that the cable facilities are limited. At the cable office several varieties of censorship intervene. The legal censorship in Europe is political as well as military, and both words are elastic. It has been applied, not only to the substance of the news, but to the mode of presentation, and even to the character of the type and the position on the page. But the real censorship on the wires is the cost of transmission. This in itself is enough to limit any expensive competition or any significant independence. The big Continental news agencies are subsidized. Censorship operates also through congestion and the resultant need of a system of priority. Congestion makes possible good and bad service, and undesirable messages are not infrequently served badly.

When the report does reach the editor, another series of interventions occurs. The editor is a man who may know all about something, but he can hardly be expected to know all about everything. Yet he has to decide the question which is of more importance than any other in the formation of opinions, the question where attention is to be directed. In a newspaper the heads are the foci of attention, the odd corners the fringe; and whether one as pact of the news or another appears in the centre or at the periphery makes all the difference in the world. The news of the day as it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy. For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day. Now the power to determine each day what shall seem important and what shall be neglected is a power unlike any that has been exercised since the Pope lost his hold on the secular mind.

The ordering is not done by-one man, but by a host of men, who are on the whole curiously unanimous in their selection and in their emphasis. Once you know the party and social affiliations of a newspaper, you can predict with considerable certainty the perspective in which the news will be displayed. This perspective is by no means altogether deliberate. Though the editor is ever so much more sophisticated than all but a minority of his readers, his own sense of relative importance is determined by rather standardized constellations of ideas. He very soon comes to believe that his habitual emphasis is the only possible one.

Why the editor is possessed by a particular set of ideas is a difficult question of social psychology, of which no adequate analysis has been made. But we shall not be far wrong if we say that he deals with the news in reference to the prevailing mores of his social group. These mores are of course in a large measure the product of what previous newspapers have said; and experience shows that, in order to break out of this circle, it has been necessary at various times to create new forms of journalism, such as the national monthly, the critical weekly, the circular, the paid advertisement of ideas, in order to change the emphasis which had become obsolete and habit-ridden.

Into this extremely refractory, and I think increasingly disserviceable mechanism, there has been thrown, especially since the outbreak of war, another monkey-wrench - propaganda. The word, of course, covers a multitude of sins and a few virtues. The virtues can be easily separated out, and given a new name, either advertisement or advocacy. Thus, if the National Council of Belgravia wishes to publish a magazine out of its own funds, under its own imprint, advocating the annexation of Thrums, no one will object. But if, in support of that advocacy, it gives to the press stories that are lies about the atrocities committed in Thrums; or, worse still, if those stories seem to come from Geneva, or Amsterdam, not from the press-service of the National Council of Belgravia, then Belgravia is conducting propaganda. If, after arousing a certain amount of interest in itself, Belgravia then invites a carefully selected correspondent, or perhaps a labor leader, to its capital, puts him up at the best hotel, rides 'him around in limousines, fawns on him at banquets, lunches with him very confidentially, and then puts him through a conducted tour so that he shall see just what will create the desired impression, then again Belgravia is conducting propaganda. Or if Belgravia happens to possess the greatest trombone-player in the world, and if she sends him over to charm the wives of influential husbands, Belgravia is, in a less objectionable way, perhaps, committing propaganda, and making fools of the husbands.

Now, the plain fact is that out of the troubled areas of the world the public receives practically nothing that is not propaganda. Lenin and his enemies control all the news there is of Russia, and no court of law would accept any of the testimony as valid in a suit to determine the possession of a donkey. I am writing many months after the Armistice. The Senate is at this moment beginning to consider the question whether it will guarantee the frontiers of Poland; but what we learn of Poland we learn from the Polish Government and the Jewish Committee. Judgment on the vexed issues of Europe is simply out of the question for the average American; and the more cocksure he is, the more certainly is he the victim of some propaganda.

These instances are drawn from foreign affairs, but the difficulty at home, although less flagrant, is nevertheless real. Theodore Roosevelt, and Leonard Wood after him, have told us to think nationally. It is not easy. It is easy to parrot what those people say who live in a few big cities and who have constituted themselves the only true and authentic voice of America. But beyond that it is difficult. I live in New York and I have not the vaguest idea what Brooklyn is interested in. It is possible, with effort, much more effort than most people can afford to give, for me to know what a few organized bodies like the Non-Partisan League, the National Security League, the American Federation of Labor, and the Republican National Committee are up to; but what the unorganized workers, and the unorganized farmers, the shopkeepers, the local bankers and boards of trade are thinking and feeling, no one has any means of knowing, except perhaps in a vague way at election time. To think nationally means, at least, to take into account the major interests and needs and desires of this continental population; and for that each man would need a staff of secretaries, traveling agents, and a very expensive press-clipping bureau.

We do not think nationally because the facts that count are not systematically reported and presented in a form we can digest. Our most abysmal ignorance occurs where we deal with the immigrant. If we read his press at all, it is to discover ‘Bolshevism’ in it and to blacken all immigrants with suspicion. For his culture and his aspirations, for his high gifts of hope and variety, we have neither eyes nor ears. The immigrant colonies are like holes in the road which we never notice until we trip over them. Then, because we have no current information and no background of facts, we are, of course, the undiscriminating objects of any agitator who chooses to rant against ‘foreigners.’

Now, men who have lost their grip upon the relevant facts of their environment are the inevitable victims of agitation and propaganda. The quack, the charlatan, the jingo, and the terrorist, can flourish only where the audience is deprived of independent access to information. But where all news comes at second-hand, where all the testimony is uncertain, men cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions. The environment in which they act is not the realities themselves, but the pseudo-environment of reports, rumors, and guesses. The whole reference of thought comes to be what somebody asserts, not what actually is. Men ask, not whether such and such a thing occurred in Russia, but whether Mr. Raymond Robins is at heart more friendly to the Bolsheviki than Mr. Jerome Landfield. And so, since they are deprived of any trustworthy means of knowing what is really going on, since everything is on the plane of assertion and propaganda, they believe whatever fits most comfortably with their prepossessions.

That this breakdown of the means of public knowledge should occur at a time of immense change is a compounding of the difficulty. From bewilderment to panic is a short step, as everyone knows who has watched a crowd when danger threatens. At the present time a nation easily acts like a crowd. Under the influence of headlines and panicky print, the contagion of unreason can easily spread through a settled community. For when the comparatively recent and unstable nervous organization which makes us capable of responding to reality as it is, and not as we should wish it, is baffled over a continuing period of time, the more primitive but much stronger instincts are let loose.

War and Revolution, both of them founded on censorship and propaganda, are the supreme destroyers of realistic thinking, because the excess of danger and the fearful overstimulation of passion unsettle disciplined behavior. Both breed fanatics of all kinds, men who, in the words of Mr. Santayana, have redoubled their effort when they have forgotten their aim. The effort itself has become the aim. Men live in their effort, and for a time find great exaltation. They seek stimulation of their effort rather than direction of it. That is why both in war and revolution there seems to operate a kind of Gresham’s Law of the emotions, in which leadership passes by a swift degradation from a Mirabeau to a Robespierre; and in war, from a high-minded statesmanship to the depths of virulent, hating jingoism.

The cardinal fact always is the loss of contact with objective information. Public as well as private reason depends upon it. Not what somebody says, not what somebody wishes were true, but what is so beyond all our opining, constitutes the touchstone of our sanity. And a society which lives at second-hand will commit incredible follies and countenance inconceivable brutalities if that contact is intermittent and untrustworthy. Demagoguery is a parasite that flourishes where discrimination fails, and only those who are at grips with things themselves are impervious to it. For, in the last analysis, the demagogue, whether of the Right or the Left, is, consciously or unconsciously an undetected liar.

III

Many students of politics have concluded that, because public opinion was unstable, the remedy lay in making government as independent of it as possible. The theorists of representative government have argued persistently from this premise against the believers in direct legislation. But it appears now that, while they have been making their case against direct legislation, rather successfully it seems to me, they have failed sufficiently to notice the increasing malady of representative government.

Parliamentary action is becoming notoriously ineffective. In America certainly the concentration of power in the Executive is out of all proportion either to the intentions of the Fathers or to the orthodox theory of representative government. The cause is fairly clear. Congress is an assemblage of men selected for local reasons from districts. It brings to Washington a more or less accurate sense of the superficial desires of its constituency. In Washington it is supposed to think nationally and internationally. But for that task its equipment and its sources of information are hardly better than that of any other reader of the newspaper. Except for its spasmodic investigating committees, Congress has no particular way of informing itself. But the Executive has. The Executive is an elaborate hierarchy reaching to every part of the nation and to all parts of the world. It has an independent machinery, fallible and not too trustworthy, of course, but nevertheless a machinery of intelligence It can be informed and it can act, whereas Congress is not informed and cannot act.

Now the popular theory of representative government is that the representatives have the information and therefore create the policy which the executive administers. The more subtle theory is that the executive initiates the policy which the legislature corrects in accordance with popular wisdom. But when the legislature is haphazardly informed, this amounts to very little, and the people themselves prefer to trust the executive which knows, rather than the Congress which is vainly trying to know. The result has been the development of a kind of government which has been harshly described as plébiscite autocracy, or government by newspapers. Decisions in the modern state tend to be made by the interaction, not of Congress and the executive, but of public opinion and the executive.

Public opinion for this purpose finds itself collected about special groups which act as extra-legal organs of government. There is a labor nucleus, a farmers’ nucleus, a prohibition nucleus, a National Security League nucleus, and so on. These groups conduct a continual electioneering campaign upon the unformed, exploitable mass of public opinion. Being special groups, they have special sources of information, and what they lack in the way of information is often manufactured. These conflicting pressures beat upon the executive departments and upon Congress, and formulate the conduct of the government. The government itself acts in reference to these groups far more than in reference to the district congressmen. So politics as it is now played consists in coercing and seducing the representative by the threat and the appeal of these unofficial groups. Sometimes they are the allies, sometimes the enemies, of the party in power, but more and more they are the energy of public affairs. Government tends to operate by the impact of controlled opinion upon administration. This shift in the locus of sovereignty has placed a premium upon the manufacture of what is usually called consent. No wonder that the most powerful newspaper proprietor in the English-speaking world declined a mere government post.

No wonder, too, that the protection of the sources of its opinion is the basic problem of democracy. Everything else depends upon it. Without protection against propaganda, without standards of evidence, without criteria of emphasis, the living substance of all popular decision is exposed to every prejudice and to infinite exploitation. That is why I have argued that the older doctrine of liberty was misleading. It did not assume a public opinion that governs. Essentially it demanded toleration of opinions that were, as Milton said, indifferent. It can guide us little in a world where opinion is sensitive and decisive.

The axis of the controversy needs to be shifted. The attempt to draw fine distinctions between ‘liberty’ and ‘license’ is no doubt part of the day’s work, but it is fundamentally a negative part. It consists in trying to make opinion responsible to prevailing social standards, whereas the really important thing is to try and make opinion increasingly responsible to the facts. There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the information by which to detect lies. Trite as the conclusion may at first seem, it has, I believe, immense practical consequences, and may perhaps offer an escape from the logomachy into which the contests of liberty so easily degenerate.

It may be bad to suppress a particular opinion, but the really deadly thing is to suppress the news. In time of great insecurity, certain opinions acting on unstable minds may cause infinite disaster. Knowing that such opinions necessarily originate in slender evidence, that they are propelled more by prejudice from the rear than by reference to realities, it seems to me that to build the case for liberty upon the dogma of their unlimited prerogatives is to build it upon the poorest foundation. For, even though we grant that the world is best served by the liberty of all opinion, the plain fact is that men are too busy and too much concerned to fight more than spasmodically for such liberty. When freedom of opinion is revealed as freedom of error, illusion, and misinterpretation, it is virtually impossible to stir up much interest in its behalf. It is the thinnest of all abstractions and an over-refinement of mere intellectualism. But people, wide circles of people, are aroused when their curiosity is baulked. The desire to know, the dislike of being deceived and made game of, is a really powerful motive, and it is that motive that can best be enlisted in the cause of freedom.

What, for example, was the one most general criticism of the work of the Peace Conference? It was that the covenants were not openly arrived at. This fact stirred Republican Senators, the British Labor Party, the whole gamut of parties from the Right to the Left. And in the last analysis lack of information about the Conference was the origin of its difficulties. Because of the secrecy endless suspicion was aroused; because of it the world seemed to be presented with a series of accomplished facts which it could not reject and did not wish altogether to accept. It was lack of information which kept public opinion from affecting the negotiations at the time when intervention would have counted most and cost least. Publicity occurred when the covenants were arrived at, with all the emphasis on the at. This is what the Senate objected to, and this is what alienated much more liberal opinion than the Senate represents.

In a passage quoted previously in this essay, Milton said that differences of opinion, ‘which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace.’ There is but one kind of unity possible in a world as diverse as ours. It is unity of method, rather than of aim; the unity of the disciplined experiment. There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: the increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs. With a common intellectual method and a common area of valid fact, differences may become a form of cooperation and cease to be an irreconcilable antagonism.

That, I think, constitutes the meaning of freedom for us. We cannot successfully define liberty, or accomplish it, by a series of permissions and prohibitions. For that is to ignore the content of opinion in favor of its form. Above all, it is an attempt to define liberty of opinion in terms of opinion. It is a circular and sterile logic. A useful definition of liberty is obtainable only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their response and learn to control their environment. In this view liberty is the name we give to measures by which we protect and increase the veracity of the information upon which we act.

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The Triumph of an Idea

The Triumph of an Idea (Alt. source)

Beginning and Conclusion of Seven Years of Public Service

"Meanwhile, please God, as ever hitherto in a crisis of the Republic, a man will emerge from comparative political obscurity, capable of holding high the torch of personal liberty, that all the people may see the clear light and revert gladly to the pristine standard of individual and industrial progress which, despite temporary retrogression, continues to be the glory of the nation." - North American Review, August, 1910

Selections from about Three Hundred Columns of Editorial and Special Articles Published in "Harper's Weekly" and "The North American Review" during the Seven Years beginning on March 10, 1906, and ending on March 8, 1913

MARCH 10, 1906

AT the dinner given the other evening by the Lotos Club of this city in his honor, we ventured to suggest the nomination of President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, using substantially these words:

For nearly a century before Woodrow Wilson was born the atmosphere of the Old Dominion was surcharged with true statesmanship. The fates directed his steps along other paths, but the effect of growth among the traditions of the fathers remained. That he is pre-eminent as a lucid interpreter of history we all know. But. he is more than that. No one who reads, understandingly, the record of his country that flowed with such apparent case from his pen can fail to be impressed by the belief that he is by instinct a statesman. The grasp of fundamentals, the seemingly unconscious application of primary truth to changing conditions. the breadth in thought and reason manifested on those pages, are as clear evidences of sagacity worthy of the best and noblest of Virginia's traditions as was that truly eloquent a peal which last year he addressed to his brethren o the South, that they rise manfully from the ashes of prejudice and lethargy and come back into their own.

It is that type of men we shall, if, indeed, we do not already, need in our public life. No one would think for a moment of criticizing the general reformation of the human race in all of its multifarious phases now going on by executive decree, but it is becoming increasingly evident that that great work will soon be accomplished. When that time shall have been reached, the country will need at least a short breathing-spell for what the physicians term perfect rest. That day, not now far distant, will call for a man combining the activities of the present with the sobering influences of the past.

If one could be found who, in addition to those qualities, should unite in his personality the finest instinct of true statesmanship as the effect. of his early environment, and the no less valuable capacity for practical application, achieved through subsequent endeavors in another field, the ideal would be attained. Such a man I believe is Woodrow Wilson, of Virginia and New Jersey.

It was not a hasty or ill-considered utterance. And yet, though based upon earnest conviction and due reflection, there was no expectation that such a suggestion at this early day would evoke substantial response. That it has done so justifies a reference to the subject in these columns. Elsewhere we reprint some of the journalistic comments based upon the meager reports in the daily papers. In a more personal way, verbally and by letter, we have received a surprising number of approving messages, which we are not now at liberty to quote. It seems worth while, therefore, to invite consideration of some of the reasons that might properly be adduced in support of the proposal. (1) Mr. Wilson is, as stated, more than the accomplished scholar, the practical educator, the competent executive he has proven himself to be; he is, in truth, a statesman of breadth, depth, and exceptional sagacity. (2) He is an idealist, yet notably sane. (3) He is a genuine orator whose words ring true and bear conviction. (4) He stands for everything that is sound and progressive. (5) He holds the respect of every one with whom he has come in contact, and the admiration particularly of all college-bred men. (6) His fidelity to the interests of the whole people is as unquestioned as his integrity. (7) He represents no class, no creed, no hobby, no vain imaginings. (8) He is at the fullness of his powers in age and experience. (9) He has profound convictions from instinct and learning and the courage of fearless expression. (10) He has no enemies -his is a clean slate. (11) He possesses to a degree unequaled since the days of BLAINE that indefinable quality known as personal magnetism. (12) He is not only highminded, but broad-minded and strong-minded. (13) He was born in Virginia and hails from New Jersey. His nomination would be a recognition of the South which the South nobly deserves. His election would be an everlasting pledge of a country united in fact, in determination to solve all besetting problems, in inspiration to fulfil America's highest destiny. Such is the man, and such a man is needed by the country, from whatever political party he may spring. We have no hesitancy, therefore, in inviting serious consideration of the suggestion.

From the Atlanta "Journal"

That was a high compliment paid to Dr. Woodrow Wilson by George Harvey when, at the Lotos Club dinner to Dr. Wilson, he placed that distinguished educator in nomination for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket in 1908.

The surprise was complete to Dr. Wilson and all the guests, but the latter promptly showed their approval by prolonged and hearty applause. The dinner was in no sense political, and of those present probably a majority were Republicans; but, none the less, all voiced their approbation of the honor done their guest.

Since it is well known that Harvard men talk of President Roosevelt as successor to President Eliot, when Mr. Roosevelt shall have left the White House, this nomination of Dr. Wilson suggests what may prove to be a notable coincident.

If time should indeed bring it about thus, then, verily, shall we have come upon a, satisfactory solution not only of the problem as to what. we shall do with our Presidents, but also of the puzzle as to where shall we look for them.

From the Washington "Star"

George Harvey, the editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, suggests President Wilson of Princeton University for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1908. Well, why not? That is, if Mr. Bryan, or Mr. Hearst, or some other man of their faith, is not on the cards for the contest. In other words, if the Democratic party is not wholly and irrevocably radical, and is willing to make another appeal to the country under conservative leadership, Professor Wilson has claims to consideration.

In 1904 the party turned from the strictly political to the judicial field for its candidate. The play was for conservative support. Mr. Bryan had twice been defeated on a radical platform, and hope of success on that line was faint. So Judge Parker, perfumed with the approval of certain Eastern influences, was nominated. He failed, it is true, but not because of his conservatism. His colorlessness was a handicap, and, besides, nobody could have defeated Theodore Roosevelt. The fates themselves would have upset any Democratic programme that year.

Now why not turn from both the political and the judicial fields to the field of scholarship? Why not try a distinguished educator, who stands in that field and in all fields for safe things and things of good report? As Mr. Roosevelt is a, man of Eastern birth and Western training, Professor Wilson is a man of Southern birth and Eastern training. He is not only a distinguished executive as an educator, but has reputation as a brilliant historian, and he has lived long enough in New Jersey to imbibe much of the spirit of that state about practical matters.

Two of the most successful of our early Presidents were scholarly men, who knew books as well as eve day business, and had strong leanings toward the academic shades. Mr. Jefferson, whose greatest pride it was to have founded the University of Virginia, would have made a perfect president of that or any other similar institution. And Quincy Adams would have made a perfect resident of Harvard University. Henry Clay marveled at the ability of so bookish a man, who poured himself out so fully in a diary, to grapple familiarly with political affairs.

It might be well for the Democracy, unless it is thorouhly Bryanized, or Hearstized, to nominate Professor Wilson, or some other clean, clear thinker of his class. In the past forty years it has failed with several politicians, an editor, a, soldier, and last time with a. judge.

From the Washington "Star"

The Charleston News and Courier cordially indorses George Harvey’s suggestion of President Wilson of Princeton for President. In commenting on the Star's comments on the subject, wherein it was pointed out that Mr. Jefferson and Quincy Adams, both of whom acquitted themselves ably in the White House, would have served well in such an office as President Wilson now fills. the esteemed News and Courier says:

"According to his lights and for his day Dr. Wilson does not suffer in comparison with either of the great men named. He is capable, he is loyal, he is faithful to the Constitution, and he would make an ideal President. The so-called ‘vested interests’ would not be afraid of him, and the revolutionary or Socialistic wing of the party would have respect for his honesty, however they might differ from him upon questions of policy. Dr. Wilson is a Southern man who is fully known and appreciated in the Northern half of our country. He possesses great executive ability. He is a man of wide reading and fine scholarship, and would make an altogether admirable candidate.

“Why not nominate him? He is sound on the currency question and orthodox in his views of popular government. He is not a political hack discredited by political failure, and he would measure up fully to the requirements of the office of President. We do not think he is any such man as Mr. Cleveland - we do not think there is any other such man in this country; but taking him by and large, he would make a fine candidate and an ideal President.”

“Not any such man as Mr. Cleveland?” Let us all hope not. Surely the Democratic party does not want another such man as Mr. Cleveland in the White House. He got in the first time by a scratch - the same sort of scratch that landed his young pupil McClellan in the Mayor’s chair in New York for a second term - and at the end of four do-nothing years was defeated. He was nominated and elected in 1892 under the management of William C. Whitney, acting for the great corporate interests in New York, and at the end of the four most disastrous years the country had ever known in times of peace the Democratic party was in such a state of discord and demoralization that a rattling stump-orator, by the aid of one rousing deliverance. took complete possession of it, and is still in possession. An educator - even an ordinary educator - ought to be able to beat that. The chances are that President Wilson, with an opportunity, would.

But listen to Henry Watterson, who, breathing the balmy air of Florida just now, is seeing all things whole and making prophecies.- In a summing up of the political situation for his newspaper, Mr. Watterson concludes as follows:

"The old Democratic party grew so strong that it was able to make its exit the signal for a bloody war. The Republican party has grown so strong that it thinks it owns the earth, and has measurably lost the fear of God. The people seem at length ripe for a clean sweep. But they must be unified on some fighting-line and under some adequate leader, who, whatever else he is, we may make sure will not be a conservative"

In this view of the case President Wilson will not do at all, for his nomination would appeal above all things to the conservative sentiment of the country. Can Mr. Watterson be "unified on some fighting line" with Colonel Harvey and the News and Courier?

From the New Haven "Register"

The Hartford Courant takes a hand in the movement to persuade the Democratic party to nominate for its next President a college president. It says: "If Colonel Harvey's suggestion about trying their luck in 1908 with a scholar finds favor in the eyes of the Democratic brethren, they are by no means shut up to Colonel Harvey’s nominee - Dr. Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton. Dr. Eliot of Harvard is a little too old, perhaps, but there’s Dr. Henry Wade Rogers, dean of the Yale Law School, not yet fifty-three, and young for his age. He isn't a university president now, but he was. And there's Dr. Edwin Anderson Alderman, president of the University of Virginia, not yet forty-five, and one of the nicest Democrats living. Dr. Rogers is a New-Yorker by birth, Dr. Alderman is a North-Carolinian." We grow nervous when we are left out of a controversy like this, so even at the risk of butting in we suggest that it end in an agreement to have the ticket read: For President, Rogers of Yale; for Vice-President, Alderman of the University of Virginia. Platform, the old flag and an appropriation. The latter ought to corral every Republican in sight.

From the Charleston "News and Courier"

George Harvey is backing Dr. Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, for the Democratic nomination for President in 1908. The Hartford Courant suggests that Dr. Eliot of Harvard. may be a little too old. but that Dr. Henry Wade Rogers, dean of the Yale Law School, is not yet fifty-three years of age and is young for his years, and it suggests further that Dr. Edwin Anderson Alderman, president of the University of Virginia, not yet forty-five, is "one of the nicest Democrats living." We would very gladly vote for Dr. Woodrow Wilson, and we might not offer any serious objection to Dr. Eliot or to Dr. Rogers, but we could not quite stand Dr. Alderman, of the University of Virginia. If we must have a university President let us draw the line on Alderman and take Woodrow Wilson.

From the Raleigh "News Observer"

George Harvey, the editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, suggests President Wilson of Princeton University for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1908. If he can organize the Jersey voters as well as he can drill the freshmen or write history, he would be a winning candidate.

From the Knoxville "Tribune"

HARPER'S WEEKLY suggests that the Democrats nominate President Wilson, of Princeton, as their candidate for President. Such a proceeding would give Bryan and Hearst and lots of their followers a shaking up that would be the opposite of gentle.

From the Baltimore "Sun"

George Harvey nominates President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton, for President of the United States. This might stop Harvard from getting all the big offices.

From the Columbus "Journal"

The suggestion of HARPER'S WEEKLY to the Democrats to try a scholar for a Presidential nominee next time has created a favorable impression.

MAY 26, 1906

From The "Brooklyn Eagle"

Since the dinner at which the editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY suggested Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, as the Democratic candidate for President in 1908, things have happened rapidly. Democrats at that time did not see things so clearly as they see them now. The threatening dangers of demagogy in the specious dress of one or all of the various “isms” which are now being exploited were not so evident to thinking men as they are to-day. There had not at that time been heard the call of Democracy to all who believe in the principles of Thomas Jefferson to rally to the defense of the party and the nation.

It took Colonel Harvey’s hearers a full minute to make up their minds whether or not the speaker meant what he said. The assemblage of eminent men gathered about the tables in that brief minute did some of the most rapid thinking of their lives.

After the dinner was over and the diners had gone home they continued thinking about Woodrow Wilson in the new relation which Colonel Harvey had suggested. If the suggestion had been intended as a joke or as a compliment it would have ended there. Dr. Wilson would have understood the joke and would have appreciated the compliment. His perception is too keen, his mind too sane, to permit any misunderstanding on his part. When Colonel Harvey made his speech the idea was as new to Dr. Wilson as to the other guests. Weighing all the facts at his command, he concluded, as any man of good judgment and sound sense would have concluded. that Colonel Harvey did not mean to be taken seriously. He dismissed the matter from his mind.

But Colonel Harvey was entirely serious. He meant exactly what he said. that in his opinion Woodrow Wilson was exactly the kind of a man to make a President who would give to his country the best possible administration; that he was not only the kind of man, but the very man, to command the united support of working-men of all parties in all parts of the country; that he was the right man to guide the nation through the threatening breakers of radicalism.

Colonel Harvey was not the only one who did a lot of thinking that night and the next day. The majority of the men at the dinner were Republicans. but they were men of distinction; men of strong minds and clear heads. These men are still thinking of what Colonel Harvey said. It mattered not to them that the speaker had named Dr. Wilson as a fit man for the Democratic candidate. The question which each one asked himself was whether or not Dr. Wilson would measure up to the requirements of a man to Succeed the very active, very energetic Theodore Roosevelt. Measured by any and all standards, the unanimous verdict was that Woodrow Wilson was such a man as the country required.

One of the objections which is likely to be raised to the possible candidacy of Woodrow Wilson is that he is not a politician, that he has never “won his spurs,” as the saying is, in the arena of practical politics.

At first thought this objection seems a valid one. Looked at more closely. it loses much of its force. By the admission of all well-informed men there is no one in the United States who is more thoroughly familiar with the historical development of this country than Woodrow Wilson; there is no one who knows in large and in small the results of all the different policies under which the country has been governed; there is no one who has seen more clearly than Woodrow Wilson the threatening approach of popular revolt against the accumulated power of the vested interests of the country. and there is no one who, in argument, at all events, is better able to dissipate the threatening clouds of revolt against the privileged class.

Another objection raised against the candidacy of Dr. Wilson is the allegation that he is a student and not a practical man of affairs. This allegation, as all who have ever known Woodrow Wilson can abundantly testify, is based upon misinformation or lack of information. It probably arises solely from the fact that he is the president of a university, and the popular idea of a university president is that he is an academician as contrasted with a man of affairs. One of the professors at Princeton, in speaking of him a few days ago. said:

“Woodrow Wilson is not only the finest scholar I have ever known, but he is the shrewdest business man I have ever known. lie is not only a sound thinker; he is, above all else, a man of action.”

Some have raised the objection that the people at large do not know who Woodrow Wilson is. That is in a certain sense true; and the fact that it is true, rather than an intention to promote his candidacy, is the reason for this article.

Woodrow Wilson is a spare man. of medium height, noticeably wide forehead, very expressive eyes, and very attractive personality. He was born in Staunton, Virginia, on December 28, 1856, and to-day in his fiftieth year is at the height of his mental vigor. He was graduated at Princeton in 1879, studied law at the University of Virginia, received his degree of Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, was a professor at Bryn Mawr and afterward at Wesleyan University. He accepted the chair of jurisprudence at Princeton in 1890, and, upon the resignation of Dr. Patton, was the unanimous choice of the trustees for president of the university. Under his administration Princeton has grown in every respect more rapidly than ever before. He is to-day rated, both here and abroad, as America’s foremost living historian in that field which deals with the political and social development of the nation.

Woodrow Wilson is put down as a conservative, a Democrat of the old school as opposed to the latterday Democrats, who are technically known as the " radicals.”

“The radicals are in control,” say the practical politicians. “No man of the conservative type can be nominated by the Democratic party. If nominated, a conservative cannot be elected.”

In a certain sense Woodrow Wilson is a conservative. He is a conservative in that he believes it is the duty of the elected rulers of a people to learn from experience, rather than act upon theory. He believes it is their duty before taking any action involving a change of policy to gather all available information, to sift, to examine, to deduce, and so to learn why failures have been made and how to avoid future failures. He believes that every American citizen should be taught to think for himself and to see clearly for himself. He believes that every party man should have a better reason for being a party man than because he was born of certain parentage or in a certain place.

His views upon public questions are not hard to collect from his public utterances. On the questions which now agitate the American body politic he has very strong views, “definite” he might call them, and these views can hardly be called conservative. He believes that the present political unrest, of which Socialistic, Municipal Ownership, Independence League, and other similar movements are but symptomatic, is the logical and inevitable result of one definite policy of government, the fixed policy of the Republican party. Dr. Wilson’s view of this policy is that it consists of nearly half a century of legislation, systematically forced upon the country, favorable to the welfare of particular vested interests. He believes that the American people have already come to see this in a vague way and that their vision is rapidly clearing.

The real issue in Dr. Wilson's mind is whether or not these strongly intrenched vested interests will be permitted to continue this policy at the expense of the people at large.

Dr. Wilson firmly believes that the time will come when the nation must find a way to subordinate the accumulated power of these privileged interests to the general interests of the country at large; and he believes that when the time comes that the demand of the people must be met, it will be the old-time Democratic party which must meet it. Then he believes there will be a call for men of intellect, for men “ who know what they are talking about.”

The vision of the American people may not clear sufficiently to let them see the issue at the next election. It is entirely conceivable that the “radical” element, the reactionists who seize a phrase such as “free silver,” “municipal ownership,” “government ownership,” and on it attempt to build a platform, may have its way again. But sooner or later will come the new line of cleavage, and there will be lined up for battle the forces of the people against those of the privileged interests.

Dr. Wilson does not believe that the method of reform will be the destruction of the corporations and trusts, the great modern instruments of business, for he believes them the natural and indispensable machinery of modern economic effort. He believes that the method of their reform will be such an amendment of the laws as will take away from them all artificial advantage such as, for exam le, the tariff gives many of them, and such a clarifcation of the law, both civil and criminal, as will fix responsibility in an unmistakable way upon individuals, the directors and officers of the corporations, whose identity now seems lost and submerged, whose very consciences seem confused. He confidently looks for the individualization of responsibility, the reapplication of old-fashioned morals to the individual management of new-fashioned business.

Like most students of political economy, Dr. Wilson has another count in his indictment of the policy of government fathered by the Republican party. “The country has never known so great prosperity.” is the Republican argument. “The country is like a young man who finds himself heir to a rich estate,” say the economists. “By good management he could easily live abundantly from his income. But he knows he has a bank account and in the fullness of life he draws lavishly and recklessly on his capital, thinking not of the time when his fortune will be spent.” It is a notable fact that every disinterested economist in the country believes that the United States is using up its capital rapidly.

The economists, who are at the same time practical men, know that it will be difficult to make the nation at large see the truth of this doctrine. The younger element enjoys rapid living. Retrenchment is a word for which young men have little use. It is a conservative word. It implies thinking ahead, planning for the future. The element in the American population which stood a unit for Theodore Roosevelt and elected him triumphantly does not want retrenchment.

“The nation is great and strong,” say the young men everywhere. “It is growing daily greater and stronger. Why retrench? The policy of bold, vigorous administration is developing the country, and, more than that, it is developing the world. It has made us a world power. It will make us the world power. Let the distant future take care of itself.”

Dr. Wilson is a practical man as well as an economist. He knows that this view, for the present, at least, must prevail. And there is just enough truth in it, so far as the rapidity of the nation’s progress is concerned, to make it temporarily defensible. Unlike some of his fellow-economists, he does not believe that there is cause for serious alarm in the present tendency of the United States to enjoy itself, even though the nation is spending its capital. He is an optimist, and believes that the nation is certain to see the end of the path in plenty of time to change its course. And yet, conceding all this, Dr. Wilson believes that the time has come when those in authority should have constantly in mind the truth and the end of the way. In other words, it should be the nation’s policy to bring about gradually the change which is necessary to reach sound economic living, which is living on the income without reckless encroachment on the capital.

In regard to the conflict between capital and labor Dr. Wilson is, as in other things, a consistent believer in individual rights and responsibilities. All law gets its genesis by a conflict of interests; and there is nothing malign in the conflict itself. It becomes malign only when one side or the other is permitted to take an unfair advantage. He believes that in the contest between capital and labor the law should not take sides, but is should hold the balance true at all hazards, seeing to it that both sides act without malignancy or false advantage—acting as umpire, never as partisan.

MARCH 31, 1906

It is interesting to note the further comments. newspaper and individual, on the suggestion of Woodrow Wilson’s name as the Democratic candidate for President in 1908. An important characteristic of the comments, which we quote on another page, is their invariable recognition of the merits of Mr. Wilson. The Troy Press, for example, which is inclined to treat the suggestion impatiently, is forced to admit the truth of all that has been said of the equipment of the president of Princeton for the national office. After quoting with approval the tribute which appeared in HARPER’S WEEKLY of March 10th, it asserts that Mr. Wilson cannot be nominated, and cannot be elected if he be nominated, because he is comparatively unknown, and therefore it is opposed even to the suggestion of his name. According to this critic, Mr. WILSON has proved himself to be a “competent executive”; that he is “a statesman of breadth, depth, and excellent sagacity”; that he is a notably sane idealist, and that he is a “genuine orator”; that he “stands for everything that is sound and progressive”; that he has the respect of all men and the admiration of educated men; that he is faithful to the interests of the whole people; that he has profound convictions; that he has no enemies. In a word, it is admitted that Mr. WILSON possesses qualifications for the Presidency in an extraordinary degree, but it is asserted that all these will not count with the Democratic party because he is not now known to it; and that if he were nominated, the country would not elect him because he would be such a recent acquaintance. It is, of course, a mistake to assume that Woodrow WILSON is not widely known. There is no man who writes on government and on politics who is so generally and so favorably known. However, the mere fact that the only opposition to Mr. Wilson as a candidate that has yet been expressed is put on the ground that the Democratic party will not nominate an exceptional man whom it does not know to-day, and that the people will not elect a man of acknowledged virtues to whom they have just been introduced, is very illuminating. So far, it is clear, no valid objection. has been expressed, and therefore the suggestion of Mr. Wilson's name becomes all the worthier of that serious consideration which we have invited. It would probably be very difficult to defeat a man so endowed us is Mr. WILSON because the country has learned of his fitness to serve it only recently.

The assertion made by ex-Judge ALTON B. PARKER, during his recent tour in the South, that the next nominee of the Democracy for the Presidency ought to be a Southern man, has attracted a great deal of attention in Washington, as well as in the states directly concerned. Judge PARKER pointed out that during the last ten years it has proved impossible to secure harmonious action on the part of Western and Eastern Democrats. Mr. WILLIAM J. BRYAN was deserted by Eastern Democrats in 1896 and in 1900, while Judge PARKER himself in 1904 failed to poll the full Democratic vote in the West. The deduction from these facts is that prudence dictates the selection of the next nominee from a different section - to wit, the South, which has no enemies within the party, because it has loyally supported the Democratic nominee no matter whether he has been a Western man or an Eastern man. It may also he pointed out that, since the South’s manufactures have acquired enormous development, a Southern man would no longer be accused or suspected of hostility to a protective tariff, though he could undoubtedly be trusted to advocate the revision of certain schedules of the Dingley act. He would therefore appeal very strongly to the Republican revisionists, of whom there are so many in Massachusetts and in some other states. We add that, as there are few, if any, great fortunes in the South, and as the railroad interest is comparatively unimportant, the masses of Northern voters would not suspect a Southern man of being a tool of railways or monopolies.

MARCH 31, 1906

From a Letter by Henry Loomis Nelson in the Boston "Herald."

An exceedingly interesting movement is in process of fermentation. It is a movement which is exciting interest in the South. It does not naturally appeal to managers of the Democratic organizations - at least it cannot yet appeal to them. Its fortune depends wholly upon the way in which public opinion directs itself, whether there is enough discontent in the existing conditions in both parties to stir up a sentiment which will make of managing politicians a negligible quantity.

The movement, which is germinating, was started a few weeks ago by George Harvey’s mere suggestion that Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, would make an excellent President of the United States. Such a suggestion, uttered suddenly, seems like a dream, and perhaps it would not be worth discussion were it not for the reception which it has met. This has been particularly warm, not only on the part of newspapers in the South and West, but of ii. large number of serious-minded men who are in politics, but who have been convinced that politics in this country must be elevated to a higher plane than they are on at present.

Revelations which have recently been made have stirred the country, and there is thinking going on. The evil effects of combinations between politics and money-making are no longer the knowledge of a few. The world knows how corrupt, how base, how unsafe to all honest and decent people, and to all our solid social institutions, is the partnership between government and business. From the Senator receiving fees to protect a favored interest to the policeman receiving bribes to protect vice and law-breaking, the whole sordid company have been exposed to the public gaze, and the public does not like them.

By reason of these revelations there has come a healthful drift, a drift in which one may even find some persons and some institutions which, in recent years, have not been unwilling to avail themselves of corrupt conditions that made, for the time, for their pecuniary advantage. It is growing clearer to the eyes of some men who heretofore have been dim of moral vision, that in the long run corrupt politics is not healthful for any one including the man who seems to be especially assisted by an iniquity.

Sound business, in other words, flourishes most with sound and honest government. Combinations of legislators at Washington, as elsewhere, in aid of combinations of capitalists are likely to lead to social revolutions in which the rights of capital are in danger of being confounded with their wrongful privileges. Under such conditions that which is sound and good for the community is likely to be demolished when demolition becomes the order of the day, as well as that which is bad and unwholesome. Social revolutions arc not discriminating.

Woodrow Wilson’s name has given to men who have been dreaming of a better state of things something concrete to reflect upon. He stands for an idea which just now is an idea that a good many people would like to see embodied in politics. These people are convinced that there is need in our government for something superior to much that we have. There is need for a man who has not made a business of politics in an era when the business could not be successfully conducted except by methods the true character of which is now understood. Being understood, those who have practised them do not stand well before the community.

It is often said that the business of politics is a worthy and even a patriotic occupation, and worthy also of the attention of the best minds. It is easily seen, however, that as the business has been carried on by the partisanship of private interests and politicians it is not worthy o high-minded men. Such men can have no more to do with our scrap politics than an iron merchant can have to do with junk questionably acquired. Good citizens, thinking of an abstraction, have long been wishing that men might be chosen to office who would regard official life as involving the performance of public duty, and the mention of such a man as Woodrow Wilson necessarily clothes the abstraction with flesh and blood.

They say, and say truly, “Here is a man who has been a student of government, an historian of American politics, a distinguished writer on themes with which many of the present race of politicians, of whom we are very weary, have not even 3 bowing acquaintance.” He has become distinguished among Americans for the same reason that many practical statesmen have become distinguished among Englishmen - for accurate knowledge not only of the theory of the State, but for practical knowledge of the working of our institutions. He has knowledge, and the power to apply it. That he has practical ability is shown by his statesmanlike plan for the bettering of the system of instruction at the great university of which he is the head.

He is the kind of man who is selected for government work in nearly all civilized countries but not our own, and the time has come when some men of the Democracy are thinking that the day of small things has passed, and that we might as well turn our back upon the foolish assertion of the ignorant that knowledge is incompatible with practical efficiency. Not that we have not already had knowledge and efficiency in our high places. We have chosen the men having these qualifications, however, for the further reason of their availability. However this may be, there is an idea abroad that we must try to find good men and strong men for our political places who will give us better government, government which is not tainted either by corrupt bargaining, leading to a revolt which is sure to be inspired by the spirit of extravagant communism.

It does not matter much at present whether those who are thinking in this way are few or many. It is important that a good many repentant sinners are at last in agreement with the idealists, that a good many who have thought to find their profit in corrupting public life have at last become convinced that a pure and intelligent government will be better for business than a subterranean control of government. It does matter whether Woodrow Wilson be a possibility or not, it does matter that there is a noticeable disposition to treat the mention of his name respectfully. It is a name which is entitled, whatever may be the connection in which it is named, to respectful treatment, but we can all remember the time when the mere suggestion of such a name would be met by an inquiry as to his standing with the horde known as the “boys.”

The question suggests itself, are we beginning to see the end of the kind of politics in our country which is so like the politics of the gentlemen of Greece and Italy who were accustomed to relieve travelers of their money on the highway in order that it might be distributed among themselves and the gendarmerie?

It is certainly to be hoped for. At any rate, the kindly manner in which the mere suggestion of Mr. Wilson’s name has been received indicates that some people are reflecting as to the possibility of changing our politics and of reforming the character of our politicians by putting superior men in service. That the South is taking an interest in this particular person is doubtless due to the fact that Mr. Wilson is a Virginian.

Here is a man who was born in Virginia, who is trained in the knowledge of government, whose writings show that he thinks like a statesman, who has been so successful as an administrator that his experiment at Princeton is the most interesting work now going on in education, and whose relations for many years have been with a Northern state. It is wonderful this list of reasons in the life of a man that make people stop and think when he is suddenly named for an office for which his fellow-citizens have never thought of him.

Yet it is not because he is Woodrow Wilson, not because of his special fitness, that the reception of the suggestion is interesting and important; it is because of the testimony thus borne to the fact that a man like him would at this juncture be peculiarly welcome

HENRY LOOMIS NELSON.

From the Troy "Press."

In giving due weight to these considerations, we object to his nomination on the ground that the people would row Mr. Wilson up Salt River. No Great Unknowns will answer the purpose. Demonstrated political virtues must precede a Presidential nomination. Probably Colonel Harvey will agree with us in presuming that a month ago not one per cent of the readers of HARPER'S WEEKLY or the Troy Press knew whether Mr. Wilson was a Democrat or a Republican. In the circumstances, it is no disparagement to this distinguished educator to say that practically his nomination is impossible, and would be preposterous, if possible. He could not be elected. Princeton should rest content with the honor of having for a citizen the only ex-President living. It should not ask for both a President and an ex-President.

This boomlet is the compliment of one scholar to another, and an excuse for directing widespread attention to Woodrow Wilson's superior qualities.

A Letter from an Educator.

EXETER, N. H., March 7, 1906.

To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly:

SIR, - It is with great pleasure that I read your recent editorial suggesting President Woodrow Wilson as the proper Democratic candidate for the Presidency. I want to congratulate you upon having the foresight and good sense to take this stand. I have known him for several years, and came into close contact with him while I was a member of the faculty at Princeton. It has often occurred to me that he would make an ideal Chief Magistrate, and I voiced that sentiment in an article I wrote about him some years since. He is my model gentleman, and I believe that there is no man in any party his equal for the days that are ahead in this country. Let me haste to say that I am an independent in politics, lest my motives be misunderstood. I shall be glad to do anything I can to help on this boom you have started.

I am, sir,

NATHAN WILBUR HELM.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, APRIL, 1906

Whom will the democrats next nominate for President?

A JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRAT

IT is high time that thoughtful Democrats should begin to consider the question, on what issue they mean to appeal to the American people in 1908, and what standard-bearer is most likely to lead their hosts to victory. A new Federal House of Representatives will be chosen in November of this year; so will many Governors; so will many state Legislatures, which, in their turn, may powerfully affect the composition of the Federal Senate. The rank and file of the Democracy will be immensely encouraged in their effort to pluck success from the coming contest at the ballot-box, if they know that their leaders, far from maintaining an expectant attitude, and allowing things to drift, have agreed upon a sound and attractive policy, and are prepared to name a candidate for the Presidency who shall be “available” in the true sense of the word, through his power to inspire confidence, to command respect, and to secure the zealous support of the Independents, who in 1884 and in 1892 proved themselves able to turn the scale.

I

So far as the framing of an issue is concerned, it should prove a much easier task for Democrats than for Republicans. As regards the two great questions of tariff revision and the regulation of interstate railways and other great corporations engaged in interstate commerce, the Republican party seems to be irreparably ruptured. Only with the help of Democratic Senators, if at all, will Mr. Roosevelt be able to place a rate-making bill embodying his personal views upon the statute-book. It follows that government control of consolidated capital cannot be made a pivotal issue at the next Presidential election. It is true that the Democrats may justly claim to have upheld from the outset the popular demand for Federal supervision of huge railway combinations and of all formidable trusts; but the Republicans may as justly say that the same demand was recognized and pressed by their Executive chief in the White House, by many of their Senators, and by all but seven of their Representatives. It would, therefore, be difficult, if not impracticable, to make the election of 1906, or that of 1908, turn on the Trust issue. It is otherwise with the question of tariff revision. The Protectionist Republicans, or Stand-patters. have shown themselves absolute masters of their party, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives; for, if they permitted the House to pass the Philippine tariff bill, it was with the foreknowledge that the measure was going to its grave in a Senatorial committee. President Roosevelt, who, some time ago, was an advocate of tariff revision, seems to have bowed to the inevitable, and, of late, has evinced no inclination to urge reductions of the Dingley Tariff. On the other hand, the Republican friends of revision in the Fifty-ninth Congress, though relatively few, are resolute and impassioned, and have betrayed more than once a willingness to organize a revolt against the dominant element of their party, and their spirit of insubordination is strengthened by the knowledge that, in many sections of the country, the movement for revision is gaining great momentum even among Republican voters. We doubt if it would be possible to find a single Independent - by which, of course, we mean a man who in theory and practice is non-partisan - who is not also an avowed and earnest revisionist. Under the circumstances, the Democrats are not so much called upon to make tariff revision the axial issue of the contests in 1906 and 1908 as they are to accept frankly and eagerly an axial issue already made for them. That they will hail such an issue with enthusiasm is obvious. A party which in the past has demanded a tariff for revenue could not fail to welcome revision as at least a step in the right direction.

We see, then, that tariff revision, which events have made the main plank in the Democratic platform, will strongly commend Democratic candidates, provided these are wisely selected, not only to the great scale-turning body of Independents, but also to that large and growing minority of Republicans whose party allegiance is slack compared with the firmness of their demand for certain reductions of the Dingley tariff. Under the circumstances, Democrats should be able to repeat in Massachusetts the triumph gained by Governor William L. Douglas two years ago. In New York, where the Republican party is rent by faction, the Democrats certainly should be able to do much better next November than they did in 1902, when they cut down Governor Odell’s plurality to less than nine thousand votes. They ought not to miss victory in Pennsylvania, where their nominee for State Treasurer was elected less than five months ago. Bright also is their prospect of carrying Ohio, where their candidate for Governor was successful at the latest election. They will surely recover Missouri, which only for transient reasons gave her electoral votes to Mr. Roosevelt in 1904. They have a right to expect considerable gains in Maine, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, where there are many tariff-revisionists in the Republican ranks. On the whole, the Democracy seems pretty well assured of preponderance in the next House of Representatives.

II

Having thus proved successful in the preliminary skirmish, what step should next be taken by the national Democracy in order to win the great battle for the Presidency? It will not avail them to have the right platform: they must have the right candidate as well. They had the right platform in 1880, and if, with or without his consent, they had nominated Samuel J . Tilden, feeble and moribund as he was, they would have proved as irresistible as were the Christian cavaliers of Spain when they charged with the dead Cid at their head clad in his armor and propped upon his war-horse. That they had the right platform in that year is evident from the fact that President Arthur soon after recognized the necessity of revision, and brought about the creation of a Commission for the purpose. In 1884 the Democrats did not win by virtue of their platform, which was an evasive one, but because a large fraction of the Republicans in pivotal states bolted from Mr. Blaine and voted for Mr. Cleveland. In 1888 Mr. Cleveland stood on the right platform, but the non-partisans were inactive. Four years later the Independents rallied; and as there was simultaneously a good deal of discord among Republican leaders, caused by Mr. Harrison’s frigid treatment of many of them, Mr. Cleveland’s victory was monumental. It is our judgment that in 1904, after Judge Parker’s electrifying telegram to the St. Louis Convention had blazoned in deathless colors his fidelity to the gold standard, the Democratic candidate could not have been beaten by any man except Mr. Roosevelt, who. although not, by principle and by practice, a Jeffersonian Democrat, as Senator Tillman justly says, had at that time proclaimed his approval of two Democratic demands, that, namely, for the federal supervision of interstate railways and of interstate commerce generally, together with that for tariff revision. Having stolen the Democratic thunder by his advocacy of federal supervision of interstate railways and of interstate commerce, Mr. Roosevelt remained the cloud-compelling Zeus, and kept his place upon the summit of Olympus. It is, in other words, our opinion that the contest of 1904 did not turn upon platforms at all, but solely upon the vote-getting qualifications of the candidates, and, naturally, as Chief-Judge Parker was comparatively little known, and may possibly have lacked Mr. Roosevelt’s magnetic personality, he had to succumb.

To which of the great sections of the Republic should the Democrats now turn for a candidate? Nebraska and some other Western states declare that we ought to put forward William J . Bryan for a third time. We have never questioned the ability or the patriotism of the eminent Nebraskan. We believe that, if elevated to the White House, and loaded with a sense of tremendous responsibilities, he would evince sobriety and caution, sagacity and foresight. Neither have we ever seen cause to doubt his loyalty to Chief-Judge Parker, the nominee of Mr. Bryan’s party in the last Presidential campaign. Traitors there unquestionably were among pretended Democrats; but William J . Bryan was not one of them. Can he, however, blame his brethren when they confess a superstitious fear that he was born under an unlucky star? Never in the history of this country has an American citizen been elected Chief Magistrate who twice previously had been a candidate for that great office and twice had been defeated. Only thrice in our annals has a man who had even been once defeated been renominated and elected. We refer, of course, to Jefferson, to Jackson, and to Cleveland. The only other man whom Western Democrats would be at all likely to propose is Governor Folk of Missouri. He is relatively a young man, little more than eligible, in respect of age, for the Presidency, if we judge by precedents as well as by the letter of the Constitution. His career, which promises great distinction, has but begun. He, if any man, can afford to wait. As for the states east of the Mississippi and north of the Potomac, they present at the hour when we write no man whom the national Democracy would be at all likely to nominate. It is improbable that Mr. Hearst would even come forward as a candidate before the next Democratic National Convention. unless he should have been successful in obtaining the Governorship of New York. Mr. George B. McClellan has solemnly declared that he will accept a nomination for no other office so long as he is Mayor of New York City. It is possible that a Democrat may be chosen this year Governor of Pennsylvania, but there is reason to fear that this state would still prove insuperably Republican in a Presidential year. We may add that no Pennsylvania Democrat can be said to have a national reputation. We should next point out that the day is distant when either the Democrats or the Republicans will take a nominee for the Presidency from the states west of the Rocky Mountains. That section has yet much to gain in respect of population before it can pretend to such an honor.

There remains the section south of the Potomac and the Ohio, which is composed of former slave-holding states. The Democratic leaders of that section have hitherto deemed it inexpedient to press upon Democratic National Conventions the nomination of a Southern man. There is nothing new about this belief in a. Southerner’s unavailability. It prevailed for many years before the Civil War. James K. Polk was the last Southerner nominated by a Democratic National Convention for the Presidency. The Whigs, for reasons that we cannot pause to enumerate here, did not concur in the opinion that a Southern man was unavailable. They twice nominated Henry Clay, a representative of Kentucky; and on one of the only two occasions when they were successful they nominated Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana. Is it any longer true that the nomination of a son of the South is inexpedient? Is it not a fact that all Northern Democrats, all Independents, and many large-minded Republicans are convinced that the time has come to make a Southern man Chief Magistrate? Must we not acknowledge that the South, although nominally restored to the full privileges of states in the Union when she was permitted to send Senators and Representatives to Congress, is still partially disfranchised so long as her sons are debarred from the highest honor in the gift of the Republic? Shall we ever witness a veritable union - not of force and law, but of hearts - until, with the cordial concurrence of a large part of the North, a Southern man becomes Chief Magistrate? When a Southern man takes possession of the White House, then indeed will the white flowers of concord and mutual affection bloom above our battle-fields and the last drop of bitterness be purged from the sad memories of fraternal warfare. Then, indeed, will peace smile upon the land, and equity lift its head triumphant. We profess in the North to have forgiven the South, but not yet can we claim to have brought forth fruits meet for forgiveness. They profess in the South - and they proved in 1898 that the profession was sincere - to have accepted accomplished facts, and to have acquiesced loyally in a Union which they failed to subvert. Their recognition deserves acknowledgment, and their loyalty reward. That reward can only take one adequate, one convincing, one decisive form - the elevation of a Southern man to the Presidency of the United States.

III

No observant and fair-minded Northerner will deny the existence of an abundance of Presidential timber in the South. For fashioning the ribs of the Ship of State, Georgia pine is as well fitted as the cedar of Maine. It is not true that the states once Confederate have lost the breed of statesmen that once dominated the commonwealth. We could name many a Democratic Senator to-day, and more than one Democratic Representative, who, in respect of political experience, political insight, and political prescience, measures fully up to the standard of Chief Magistrate. There are Senator Morgan of Alabama and Senator Pettus of the same state, and, if some persons perchance should deem them disqualified by age, there are Senator Daniel of Virginia, and Senator Bailey of Texas, than whom no men in the Senate are more respected on the score of knowledge, judgment, and the power of lucid, forceful exposition. May it not, however, be true that these distinguished Southern legislators, by the very reason of their prolonged prominence in public life, and of their strenuous and gallant upholding of the interests of their section, are ill calculated to allay lingering prejudices that ought to be extinct and to quench the last flickering embers of sectional animosities which it is a shame to keep alive?

We must remember that the question of nominating a Southern man for the Presidency is complicated with the imperative necessity that the first post-bellum Southern administration shall be memorably successful. If the first Southern administration should prove a failure, or only a half-success, it is much to be feared that there would never be another, so vast and so rapidly increasing is the numerical preponderance of the North. To insure such success, it is indispensable that the temper of the Republicans, if beaten in 1908, shall he resigned and acquiescent, not angry, vindictive, and defiant. In other words, if a Southern President is to leave behind him a bright record of constructive statesmanship and useful legislation. he must have the good-will, if not the active support, of the whole country, and such good-will is only to be gained from a conviction, deep implanted at the North, as well as at the South, that both Sections can count upon his sympathy and, above all, upon that intimate acquaintance without which sympathy is fruitless.

We probably will be permitted to assert without contradiction that such all-embracing sympathy, such intimate and comprehensive acquaintance with the views, wishes, and interests of all sections of the Republic, is not possessed at the present juncture by any eminent Southern statesman. No veteran Southern statesman would claim it, we think, though we are sure that more than one of them sincerely regrets the lack of it. Is it necessary, however, that the Democracy, in its search for a worthy and a promising candidate for the Presidency, should confine itself to men who have spent the best part of their lives in the political arena? In this country political parties that have coveted success have not always circumscribed thus narrowly their field of selection. It was not, of course, his brief and almost speechless legislative experience in the Virginia Assembly, but his priceless military services, culminating in the capture of Cornwallis, which caused Washington in 1788 to receive every electoral vote for the Presidency. It was not his civil record in Tennessee, but the victory of New Orleans, that carried Andrew Jackson to the White House in 1828. It was not the fact that he had been Governor of Indiana Territory and a member of both Houses of. Congress, but the fact that he had triumphed at Tippecanoe, and, in the War of 1812, had beaten British soldiers under Proctor and totally routed them in the Battle of the Thames. that caused the country to go “hell-bent ” for William Henry Harrison in 1840. It was the battles of Palo Alto, of Resaca de la Palma. and of Buena Vista that made Zachary Taylor Chief Magistrate, although he was asserted and believed never to have voted in his life. Not a few well-informed persons are convinced that, had the Republicans in 1868 put forward a typical representative of the Thaddeus Stevens faction, and had the Democratic National Convention nominated. as it was on the verge of doing, Chief Justice Chase, the latter, sure as he was of Horace Greeley’s zealous support, would have had a fair chance of securing a majority of the Presidential electors. If the Republicans were overwhelmingly successful that year at the ballot-box, it was because their choice fell on the man who hailed from Appomattox, though he had not voted for years, and though his latest vote is alleged to have been cast for a Democratic ticket.

Nor have party managers in the United States always confined themselves to the army, when, turning away for the moment from professional politicians, they have discussed or agreed upon the selection of a candidate from some other field of public usefulness. We can see in retrospect that, if the Republican National Convention in 1856 had followed the advice of Thaddeus Stevens, not yet discredited by headlong partisanship, and had nominated Justice McLean of the United States Supreme Court, they would probably have carried Pennsylvania, and, in all likelihood, have gained a majority of the electoral votes. In 1904 the Democracy conferred a nomination for the Presidency on the Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and, as has been already intimated, there is but little doubt that, after his memorable telegram to the St. Louis Convention, Chief-Judge Parker would have been elected had he not been pitted against a popular idol. He would have beaten with the utmost case a Republican competitor of the Hanna type.

IV

Is it only in the legislative arena, in the army. or in the judiciary that great political parties must seek a name to conjure with in contests for the Presidency? Is it true that, as things are now, the intellect of the nation flows solely or mainly through those channels? Has not industry its generals, its commanders-in-chief, its conquerors? If brains were the only pre-requisite, would not the creator of a transcontinental railroad, the imparter of prodigious development to the nation’s natural resources, the successful consummator of such an enterprise as the Panama Canal, deserve the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the highest post at their disposal? There was a time when a large part of the American people would have answered the question in the affirmative, for in 1812 they gave no fewer than eighty-nine electoral votes to De Witt Clinton, who was already advocating the great undertaking which he was ultimately to accomplish, the construction of the Erie Canal. It is possibly true, however, that, in our day, owing to the inimical relations of labor and capital, a victor in the field of industrial evolution, however qualified he might be on the score of intellectual worth and of services to the country, would be unavailable as a candidate if considered from the viewpoint of his vote-getting ability. For the moment, therefore, the triumphant organizers of production and transportation, who, by sheer dint of mental energy, have amassed colossal fortunes, may be eliminated from the list of available nominees.

There remains a field of activity and usefulness the importance of which to the nation cannot be overestimated; nor will any fair-minded man dispute that the eminent and fruitful workers in that field may challenge the highest office in the gift of the American people on the score of merit and of availability. We refer, of course, to the victors in the vast and inestimable department of public instruction; to the great captains of the higher education. The designation of such men for distinguished functions under the Federal government is by no means unprecedented. George Bancroft had been a college tutor and a schoolmaster, and he left incomplete his famous History of the United States to become Secretary of the Navy in the Polk administration, and, subsequently, be was sent to represent his country in London and in Berlin. Edward Everett, after the death of Daniel Webster, left the presidency of Harvard College to become Secretary of State. Mr. Andrew D. White, the former president of Cornell University. has more than once been invited to occupy the highest posts in the nation’s diplomatic service. No one has ever disputed that the statesman-like duties assumed by these organizers, directors, and inspirers of the higher education were admirably discharged. Why, then, should not the Democratic party in 1908, when seeking a nominee for the Presidency who will not only deserve but command success, turn its eyes in the same promising direction? Is it not quite possible to find among the presidents of honored universities a man richly qualified for the headship of the federal government by great natural ability, by long and distinguished professional experience, by the illuminating and invigorating trend of his studies, by his exceptional popularity, and by his unique power of securing the confidence. the sympathy, and the support of all sections of the Union?

V

We submit that such a man may be found in Woodrow Wilson, of Virginia, now president of Princeton University. Woodrow Wilson, we may briefly recall, was born at Staunton, Virginia, on December 28, 1856, and is not yet, therefore, fifty years of age. He was graduated from Princeton in 1879, and, after studying law in the University of Virginia, he began the practice of his profession in Atlanta, Georgia. The lady whom he married in 1885 was a native of Savannah. Impelled by his personal tastes and aptitudes to transfer his energies from the law to the_field of the higher education, he became successively a Professor of History and Political Economy in Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University, then a Professor of Jurisprudence and Politics at Princeton; and, finally, since August, 1902, he has been the president of the last-named university. He is held in the highest honor by every Princeton graduate and by all university men. He is known to a multitude of thoughtful readers as the author of Congressional Government: A Study of American Politics; of The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics; of Division and Reunion, 1829-1889; of a life of George Washington; and, finally, of an elaborate and comprehensive History of the American People. As was pointed out the other day in HARPER'S WEEKLY, no one who reads understandingly his record of his country’s extraordinary growth, which in his History of the American People seemed to flow with such apparent ease from his pen, can fail to be impressed with the belief that he is, by instinct and education, a statesman. The grasp of fundamental principles, the seemingly intuitive application of primary truth to changing conditions, the breadth of thought and the cogency of reasoning exemplified in the pages of that work, were rightly acclaimed in HARPER'S WEEKLY as clear evidences of sagacity, worthy of Virginia’s noblest traditions, as was also the eloquent appeal addressed last year by President Wilson to his brethren of the South, in which he called upon them to rise manfully from the ashes of prejudice and lethargy, and come back into their own. We ourselves cordially concur - and we believe that far-sighted Democrats all over the country will concur also - with HARPER'S WEEKLY in the conviction that the country needs relief from the strenuous and histrionic methods of Federal administration now exemplified in the White House. It needs a man who is a genuine historical scholar, and who has conclusively proved himself a competent executive. It needs a statesman of breadth, depth, and exceptional sagacity; an idealist, who, at the same time, shall be exceptionally sane. It needs a man who, although steeped in Jeffersonian teachings, can be trusted at a given crisis to ask, not what Jefferson did a century ago, but what Jefferson would do now. It needs a man whose nomination would be a recognition of the South, which the South nobly deserves, and whose election would be a decisive proof of the full restoration of the Union. Such, unquestionably, is the man whom the country urgently requires, by whatever political party he may chance to be brought forward. Such a man is Woodrow Wilson, of Virginia and New Jersey. We add that he is a Democrat, and of course a tariff revisionist. In a word, he meets all the exigencies of the situation.

APRIL 4. 1906

From the Savannah “Press”

Princeton already has one President “in her midst.” and in our opinion he was one of the best the nation ever had. He is a scholar, in some ways a littérateur. President Roosevelt is an historian and an author who has written extensively about bears and Federalists.

In this line Woodrow Wilson is superior to either. If his history is open to some criticism from a Southern viewpoint, the volume on The State is above reproach. The distinguished author went to school when he was a boy in Augusta, where his father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the Georgia city. The Press has watched his career with interest and enthusiasm. Several years ago this paper nominated him for Chancellor of the State University. Naturally, he preferred to be head of his own alma mater at Princeton. He may have been born in Virginia, but he is a Georgian, married a Georgia woman, and ought to get the electoral vote of Georgia if he concludes to become a candidate on the Democratic side. We presume, of course, that HARPER'S WEEKLY is boosting him for the Democratic nomination. With this understanding we are for him.

From the Columbus (S. C.) “State”

Mr. Harvey is agreeably surprised at the public reception given the suggestion that the Democrats make Woodrow Wilson their leader. although he says his remarks in the Lotos Club were not hastily made or ill considered. The idea of having a statesman for a Presidential candidate is somewhat novel, but nevertheless it is attractive to the non-politician, and Mr. Harvey has grouped quite a fonnidablc number of reasons favorable to Mr. Wilson.

There is no reason why “serious consideration” should not be given to the suggestion. Presidential timber is not too plentiful, and Presidential timber of the redwood variety is alarmingly scarce. It might be a terrible shock to the American people to have such a man as is described by Mr. Harvey aspire to the Chief Magistracy, but they would get over it; it could be shown that there was precedent for such a thing; there were statesmen in the long ago, and they did quite well. In fact, much used to be done by Americans in a quiet way. The “big stick” was not always the favored policy; it is an excrescence of modern methods.

From the Kansas City “Times”

Woodrow Wilson, whom HARPER'S WEEKLY suggests for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is, with perhaps one exception, the most excellent Democrat in Princeton, New Jersey.

APRIL 7, 1906

It is asserted by friends of Mr. WILLIAM J. BRYAN that he has made up his mind not to seek the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1908. Where, then, will the national convention of the Democracy look for a candidate? Mr. JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, of Mississippi, maintains that it should not look to the Southern states. If the opinion is based on the assumption that a Southern candidate for the Presidency would provoke a revival of sectional animosity at the North, we believe Mr. WILLIAMS to be mistaken. A more plausible objection is that it is impolitic to take a candidate from a part of the country which the Democrats are sure of carrying. Politicians have long been in the habit of selecting candidates for the Presidency from states that are or have been doubtful. This objection on the score of expediency could be met by the selection of a man born, brought up, and educated at the South, but who, subsequently, by long residence at the North, has acquired an intimate knowledge of his fellow countrymen in that section. As we have formerly pointed out, such an ideal combination of qualifications is presented in WOODROW WILSON, president of Princeton University. No objection to his candidacy could be made on the ground that New Jersey is irretrievably Republican. Local pride plays a great part in that state, and although it was swept by the Republicans in the last three Presidential years, it gave its electoral votes to TILDEN and to HANCOCK, and thrice voted for Mr. CLEVELAND. We add that in 1901 a change of less than 9,000 votes from one side to the other would have defeated the Republican candidate for Governor.

APRIL 14, 1906

The suggestion that WOODROW WILSON be the Democratic candidate for President in 1908 continues to excite comment from the newspapers of all parts of the country. The most serious effect of the suggestion has been felt in the South and in New Jersey. This is natural and logical, for Mr. WILSON was born in the South, and his boyhood is remembered not only in Virginia, his native state, but in Georgia, where he attended school, where his father preached, and where he married his wife. He has always been, as will be seen from the remarks of the Savannah Press, in high favor with the Georgians, and was once suggested for Chancellor of the State University. In New Jersey, where he was a student at Princeton, and where, since he has been professor and president. the suggestion is as cordially received as it is in the South. The Savannah Press says that it is in favor of Mr. WILSON for President on the understanding that he is to be the Democratic candidate. The original mention of his name was as that of a man very worthy to be the Democratic candidate. It is not quite accurate to say, as the Press does, that HARPER'S WEEKLY is “boosting” Mr. WILSON. It is doing nothing of the sort. It has recognized in him a man eminently fit to be President and to be the Democratic candidate for President. The statement of this fact alone is a complete answer to the other statement that the WEEKLY has put him forward as its candidate. We would, it is true, be delighted if the Democratic party would consent to make so sensible and proper a nomination as this would be. Not only New Jersey but Pennsylvania welcomes the suggestion. New England newspapers treat it respectfully, while one Western paper shows its appreciation of Mr. WILSON; by ranking him with GROVER CLEVELAND.

To the WEEKLY the interesting feature of all this comment is the evidence it affords that a good many Democratic newspapers realize the value of character, of dignity, of intellectual equipments for the Presidential office. Faith is shown, too, in the strength of repose and in the power of quiet. The Southern newspapers indicate that their part of the country quite understands the honor that a nomination of a Southerner would be to their section, but they also show that they are chiefly glad that a Southern man is talked about, not because of the place of his birth, but because of his worthiness for the highest office in the land. Mr. WILSON is not mentioned because he is a Southerner, but being mentioned because of his own personality, his own character, his own accomplishments, and his own ,ability, he also happens to be a Southerner. This makes the incident especially gratifying to the South. Another very significant statement is to be found in the closing paragraph of an editorial of the Trenton American which we lack space to quote in full this week. If, says this newspaper, Mr. WILSON be nominated, he "will unquestionably have back of him the men of both parties whose ideals are the restoration of primal principles and a return to constitutional government." From all this it will be seen that much good has been accomplished by the mere suggestion that Mr WILSON'S candidacy is one which the Democratic party ought to take into serious consideration.

This advice may not fructify into action, but at least the suggestion has excited comment, and may excite discussion, that must benefit the party and the country. It has made serious editors lift their eyes from the crowd of politicians who are running along in the old nuts to contemplate a man who has what we might call real Presidential ability and Presidential virtues - that is, ability and virtues which are his own, and which distinguish him from a mass of people who have mere availability. When it is considered that supposed availability has been the leading virtue of all the Democratic Presidential candidates who have ever been defeated, it seems odd that it is still a virtue as highly considered by those who make slates. It is probably true. however, that no Democratic candidate over will be successful without a preliminary victory over the slate-makers. Therefore it is gratifying to a political onlooker to note the pleasure with which thoughtful men receive a name that would never occur to a professional namer of candidates for defeat. It is now demonstrated that there are editors - and presumably many readers for every editor - who would be glad to transform the Democratic party into a real and intelligent opposition which, being intelligent, would enjoy its proper share of power, and, when out of power, would be recognized as a force to be reckoned with on account of both its intelligence and its patriotism.

APRIL 21, 1906

It would be impossible to reprint in the WEEKLY all the comments of the press of the country on the suggestion that Mr. WOODROW WILSON is an admirable statesman, a thoroughly equipped public man, and that he would be an excellent Democratic candidate for President. In view of some of the comments, we are compelled to say that the WEEKLY is not “booming” him as its candidate, but is presenting reasons to explain the proposition that the Democratic party would act the part of wisdom if it should nominate for President this eminently qualified gentleman. We are glad that in doing this we have excited some very interesting discussion, most of which is worthy of note.

Naturally there are some objections to the proposed nomination. It would not only be strange if there were not objections, but the absence of them would indicate a discreditable lack of interest in the intimation that it would be well for the country to think of a scholar of politics as a fit man to be President of the United States. Among the objections made is one that might have been anticipated; it is aroused by Mr. WILSON'S scholarship. In some instances it is boldly stated that a student or a scholar is not the kind of man who would make a good President; in other instances this suspicion of learning is veiled under the convenient phrase that Mr. WILSON is not “practical.” One strange person argues that all professors must be absolutely wrong because the majority of professors believe in free trade. This is the assumption of a writer who admits that he is practical, and well illustrates the reasoning indulged in by many practical men. Nothing can be urged against practical statesmen, but it may he said that a student of politics is more likely to be a practical statesman than is a manipulator of primaries, or a successful distributor of spoils, or a log-rolling legislator, or one who would prefer a new court-house in his district to the welfare of the whole country. Usually we mean by a practical politician a man who manages a machine, first, for his own advancement, and incidentally for the gain of the party which furnishes him the votes which keep him in place. Such men have their uses, but the time is here when our highest offices should be filled by men who are trained to the high duties of statesmanship by study, by the thoughtfulness on public subjects which is aided by learning, by the application of the fruits of learning to the ever-recurring political problems of all times. To prefer for President a so-called practical organization man to a scholar of politics is like preferring as general superintendent of a railroad the driver of a locomotive to a man to whom railroad construction, economics, and operation have been a lifelong study. One writer asserts that we would better choose our “Presidents from among statesmen - men who have already filled political office satisfactorily, and even from among these to select such men as have mastered jurisprudence.” It would probably be better still to choose our Presidents from among those who are fit for office because they comprehend the questions of statesmanship, and from among those who have so mastered jurisprudence, as Mr. WILSON has, as to be among the most eminent teachers of the science.

One of the objectors asserts that college professors are not well thought of for public men either in England or here. The fact that a man is a college professor is, indeed, not in itself a recommendation for him for this high executive office. But by professor most of the critics mean scholar, and they hold in effect that to study the art of politics is to disqualify one to practise the art. This is true of the art, or arts, most frequently practised, but it is not true of the art as it ought to be practised. This particular objector is, moreover, wrong about England. There the scholars of politics are preferred, and have been leaned upon by the country and by the parties. ever since responsible government assumed its Present form. In the present Cabinet are several distinguished mcu of letters and one who was Regius professor of history at the University of Oxford; and did an American practical politician ever write so practical a book on American government and American politics as Mr. BRYCE has done? Did ever an American parliamentarian load the House of Representatives more skilfully than did the author of A Defense of Philosophic Doubt lead the House of Commons? Was there ever a more astute party leader than the Homeric scholar who for so many years was the Prime Minister of England? Is not one who comes to understand his subject by long years of study more likely to be practical and right than one whose practicality is confined to the devising of means for getting himself and his friends into office? Even if the unstudious man has learned the arts of government by long experience, is he likely to be better equipped than he who is familiar with the experiences of the centuries during which the art of modern government has been developing?

From the Trenton (N. J.) “American”

No one who has read any of President Wilson’s masterly expositions of statecraft, no one who has followed the story of his life, will question his fitness for the high office for which Colonel Harvey nominates him.

It is a parent to students of the trend of modern politics that the Presidential battle of ’08 must he fought‘ on the issues of autocracy and democracy. The radical party of a few years ago must be the conservative party two years hence. President Roosevelt’s radicalism has changed the course of events, has turned the tables.

The Democratic party is historically the conservative party. Thomas Jefferson insisted on a strictly literal interpretation of the Constitution. Andrew Jackson destroyed the United States Bank because of his fear that the money power might through it become the ruler in America. James Buchanan feared to use force to compel South Carolina to remain in the Union, and thereby subjected himself to accusations of weakness. Grover Cleveland's administration was so conservative as to warrant the charges of the radicals, who seized the party reins in 1896, that he was in sympathy with the monetary principles enunciated by the St. Louis convention.

The American people are progressive, but are conservative as well. No radical has ever been elected President. Even Lincoln, the most nearly radical President the country has had, would not pass muster with the centralizationists, the Hamiltonians, the radicals, of to-day.

Woodrow Wilson is a thorough Democrat. He is in hearty sympathy with the Constitution. Around his banner could gather all those forces which recognize that all real progress comes by evolution rather than by revolution.

The tendency of the Democratic party is away from the quagmire of Socialism and imperialism, and back to the principles of popular government. The fact that most of the states that have undertaken governmental supervision of the railroads have proceeded along the Democratic line of giving equal opportunities to all men and special privileges to none, have exemplified the power of the states to deal with those questions which, under the Constitution, are theirs to deal with, is sufficient evidence on this point.

It is true that the United States has never called a college president to the office of Chief Executive, but Thomas Jefferson's scholarship and John Quincy Adams's intellectuality fitted either of them for such a chair as President Wilson now holds, while Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison both emerged from the White House into university lectureships, and President Roosevelt is already spoken of for a college presidency.

There seems to be an opinion that to win the highest office in the gift of the American people requires a spectacular career. True, Roosevelt has played in the limelight since his entrance on the public stage. Undoubtedly his gallery-plays had a prominent part in his election. But while a spectacular personality may increase a President’s popularity, it invariably weakens the party to which he owes allegiance. Theodore Roosevelt has demonstrated his own popularity. The coming election will more clearly expose the weaknesses of his party.

President Wilson, if nominated. will unquestionably have back of him the men of both parties whose ideals are the restoration of primal principles and a' return to constitutional government.

From the Bridgeport (Conn.) "Post"

The idea of nominating Professor Wilson is beautiful, but if we were to lay a wager on it we should be willing to place a big red apple against a small crabby one that William Randolph Hearst stood the better chance of carrying off the prize in the end, and, what is more, if the nomination were left to Democratic votes the owner of the "yellow" journal would beat the professor by a majority so large that it would be Hearst first and no second.

From the Holyoke (Mass.) "Transcript"

If Mr. Wilson is all that Mr. Harvey says he is, and most people agree that he is how in the world could he tie up to the national Democracy as it is composed to-day? The Virginia and the New Jersey in him would forbid such a union.

From the Haverhill (Mass.) "Gazette"

Colonel Harvey, of HARPER'S WEEKLY, wants the country to be serious and consider President Woodrow Wilson as a Democratic candidate for President in 1908. A number of good things are said about the Princeton man, and not one of them can be gainsaid, but the candid observer of the country in this year of our Lord 1906 must confess that he sees comparatively little of a nucleus in the Democratic party around which such a candidate could hope to build up a successful support, while the character of the support that he might be expected to draw from the Republican party would be apt to forget the excellent qualities of the candidate and turn from the friends that were flocking around him. In short, the Wilson candidacy would inevitably be an anti-Roosevelt candidacy, and the temper of the people doesn’t indicate that the return of the administration of affairs into the hands of the anti-Roosevelt, monopoly-backed Republican - or Democrats, for that matter - is likely to arouse much enthusiasm.

From the Pittsburg (Pa) “Press”

Colonel George Harvey, the editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, has made the suggestion that Professor Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, be nominated as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Although nobody can beat Roosevelt, the Wilson suggestion appears to have been taken seriously. At all events, Colonel Harvey is able to print in HARPER'S WEEKLY some half a dozen more or less thoughtful responses by newspapers representing different parties and different sections. Of course, the high character, mental attainments, patriotism, are everywhere conceded; but Colonel Harvey is too keen a humorist not to notice that the closest approach to enthusiasm evoked by his effort is found in the columns of a paper with Republican leanings.

If Professor Wilson had been born in a log cabin, had then gone to the bad, and became a United States Senator, incidentally showing his ability to boss a state legislature, he might have been made the nucleus around which to rally a formidable candidacy. But he has done none of these things. He is a mere scholar. He hasn’t any military record that any one knows of; he hasn't even a barrel to atone for his other deficiencies. What is there about him to inspire the “boys” with enthusiasm? The. football squad will be for him, but can they buck the Popocratic center?

From the Chicago “Record”

George Harvey, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, devotes the leading editorial of this week's issue to a serious discussion of his recent suggestion that Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, he the next Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

In a categorical statement of the reasons which make President Wilson available, the editorial lays stress on the fact that he was born in Virginia, and that therefore “his election would be an everlasting pledge of a country united”; says he is an accomplished scholar, an idealist, yet notably sane; a genuine orator whose words ring true and bear conviction; that he stands for everything sound and progressive; that his fidelity to the interests of the people is unquestioned; that he “represents no class, no creed, no hobby, no vain imaginings,” and is in the fulness of his power in age and experience. Continuing the list, Mr. Harvey says Professor Wilson has profound convictions from instinct and learning, but has no enemies: that he possesses personal magnetism. and is not only high-minded, but broad-minded and strong-minded.

From the Augusta (Ga.) “Chronicle”

We have no idea that the thought of entering politics had ever found lodgment in Professor Wilson’s brain, and his nebulous nomination, so to speak, by Mr. Harvey, the editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, to the highest office in the land, doubtless took him completely by surprise.

The wisdom of trying to elect a Southern man President has been strongly debated in the past, but it must be admitted that this is a somewhat different proposition. Professor Wilson has been identified with Princeton University and New Jersey in his life-Work, but, as Augustans are well aware, he was born in the South, of Southern parents, and grew to manhood in this immediate section, his father, Dr. Wilson, having been at one time pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of this city, and afterward permanently connected with the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. He may, therefore, be truthfully said to be a happy combination of the intellectual product of North and South - of the latter by heredity, birth, and breeding, of the former by long association in the prosecution of his career.

Probably, however, the most significant feature of the incident is that the selection of a Southern man as a prospective candidate for the Chief Executorship of the nation, and the statement that the South deserves the honor implied by such recognition, should have come from a publication with the past record of HARPER'S WEEKLY, for most assuredly that paper has not hitherto manifested any unusual affection for the people of this portion of the Union.

That is an extremely gratifying transformation to contemplate, however much weight the proposition of its editor at the Lotos Club banquet may have with the politicians and others who smooth such rough-hewn ends of suggestion.

From the New Haven (Conn.) “Leader”

Undoubtedly all Colonel Harvey says of President Wilson is true, and being true there is no doubt concerning the high character and general ability of this candidate, if he may be called a candidate.

Nothing is more true than that statement of the fundamental issue for the Democrats in the immediate future which is made by "Jeffersonian Democrat" in the current number of The North American Review. If the Democratic party is wise it will seize the opportunity offered to it and contend for tariff revision. In doing so it can certainly have no stronger or better-equipped leader than WOODROW WILSON. Here lies one of the many reasons why the Democratic party should seriously consider the president of Princeton for their candidate in 1908. It is not our intention to be too insistent upon the value of our suggestion to the Democratic party, and for obvious reasons. We cannot refrain, however, from saying that the present condition of parties is such that fitness for office, high character, and unusual endowments are about the last qualifications for which party leaders are looking. As will be seen from some of the press comments which we publish, the question asked by the usual party editor is. “Can he [the suggested candidate] carry the doubtful states ?” or, “Can he drive the discordant elements of the Democratic party so that they will pull strongly together like a well-trained team?” Mr. HENRY WATTERSON especially is convinced that the Democratic party is the party of all the discontents and political vagaries of the time, and that Mr. WILSON is not the man whom the crowd so afflicted will follow.

This may be so If it is the task of making of the Democratic party the opposition party to the strong and well managed Republican party is very very difficult The opponents of the Republican party cannot however expect to overcome it unless they take away some of its now dissatisfied strength. In order to do this they must unite on some important issue in favor of which they will be harmonious, just as the Republican leaders have united in hostility to tariff revision, notwithstanding their own internal and threatening discords. It is to be hoped that the people of the Democratic party will prove the falsity of the critics who say that nothing good can come out of their organization: that no good man, no statesman, no man of worth, can be nominated by such a barking multitude as are now at one another’s throats, and, therefore, at the throat of the party itself. The truth is that those who say that Mr. WILSON or any one of his character and ability - any one, in a word, who is fit to be named for President - cannot be nominated, are thinking of the wire-pullers, the slate-makers, and of the men who ought to be engaged in better work, but who impair the real usefulness of which they are capable by considering too much the men to whom politics is a business. and too little the people with whom a good man, a true man, and a fit man is always available. It is true enough that WOODROW WILSON is not a candidate for the little conventional politicians, but he is the kind of candidate who would gladden the hearts of the people, who would satisfy their sense of proportion and their respect for a great office of honor and dignity, in whose occupant they desire activity, but the activity of wisdom guided by knowledge. If the Democratic people desire to have their party occupy the high place which would make it the adequate opponent of the Republican party, a respectable opposition when in the minority, and a strong, patriotic, helpful government when in control, they must stop thinking about who can carry the doubtful states or who is available, and apply themselves to the attempt to discover what Democrat is worthy to be President. Then they must compel their managers and slate-makers to nominate their man. Leaders of public opinion, like some of the editors who are rather timidly commenting on WOODROW WILSON, could do no better than to awaken the Democratic people to a realizing sense of their own power and to arouse them to such an assertion of it as the usual politician would highly respect.

From the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) “Gazette”

Editor Harvey of HARPER'S WEEKLY, suggests that the Democratic arty name Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, as its standard-bearer in 1908. He is a scholar, an orator, a broad minded man representing no faction or creed, without enemies and at the fullness of his power.

APRIL 28, 1906

From the Detroit (Mich.) “Journal”

Editor George Harvey, of HARPER'S WEEKLY, ever unsparing of himself when he sees an opening for a national improvement, has embarked upon a task that would dismay less stout a heart. He announces his intention of making President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton, the Democratic Presidential nominee. and President Roosevelt the president of Harvard. To be sure, Editor Harvey might make the transformation scene a. little more symmetrical by sending Dr. Roosevelt to Princeton to exchange woodland reminiscences with Honourable Grover Cleveland. Still, an ambition to keep the highest office in the land in the collegiate family is altogether praiseworthy.

Undeniably he [Mr. Wilson] is all that Editor Harvey said he was at the Lotos Club dinner - a brilliant scholar, an able orator, a bustling executive, and a statesman of parts. With the possible exception of Dr. Eliot, he is clearly the most conspicuous figure on the educational horizon to day. But he has yet to demonstrate those rough-and-tumble qualities of the successful animal-trainer needful to lead the boisterous Democratic band to victory.

MAY 12, 1906

Not so much in order to gratify the justifiable pride of the editor of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal as to present to our readers the ablest argument that has been made by any Democratic editor against the nomination of WOODROW WILSON for President, we reprint the following paragraph:

We must say we don't care for a college professor for President of the United States HARPER' WEEKLY will please copy.

Seriously, we ought to say that this editor does not really believe that a college professor is necessarily disqualified for the Presidency of the United States because he is a man of learning. He would undoubtedly admit, if he knew Mr. WILSON, that he is most admirably qualified, for he has the learning of a statesman, a knowledge of our history and of our politics, a reverence for our traditions, a respect for our institutions, and a regard for the dignity of the highest office in the land, which are not the happy possession of many practical politicians, and which, say some of the commentators, have not been as conspicuous as they might have been of recent years. This, however, is a question of taste which we do not care, at present, to discuss.

From the Springfield (Mass.) “Republican”

It is not surprising that the leading article in the April North American Review booms Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States, and cordially indorses the stand taken by HARPER’S WEEKLY in the same direction, for both are guided by the same hand. . . . Colonel Harvey's thought and effort in this matter are to be commended. His appeals for high and strong action on the part of the Democratic party, as it must face the serious issues of the next Presidential campaign, are worthy of recognition and applause.

Nor will they be without some valuable result. No high standard was ever lifted in this way without some effect upon the march of a party. Everything which will tend to persuade the politicians of the minority to look higher than the feeding-trough, and to realize that the best opportunity for service, as well as the greatest hope of success, must lie upon a higher plane, is to be welcomed. It is not often enough realized that the journalism of the country has a vitalizing power of this sort to wield. Therefore Colonel Harvey’s leadership in this particular matter is worthy of sympathy, and in it there may be larger hope and potency than the merely practical politicians are yet ready to recognize. Dr. Wilson is doing an admirable work as the progressive head of Princeton University, and may not be called into the field of national politics. But the idea that some one of the caliber and capacity for statesmanship, even though as yet inexperienced in politics, can profitably be made use of by the Democratic party is a worthy one, and the more it is considered the more favorably the thought is likely to appear in the eyes of men of sense and patriotism. They will be ready to admit that the man who now rules at Old Nassau would in all human probability make a fine figure in the White House, and it is a good deal more profitable to talk about Wilson than to discuss the weather or the factional differences of the Democracy. Colonel Harvey’s thought is of the right sort.

From the Savannah (Ga.) “News”

It is rather remarkable that the editor of HARPER’S WEEKLY, which has always been classed as a Republican paper, should suggest a candidate for the Democrats to nominate for President. Still, he probably thought in doing so he was rendering both the country and the Democratic party a service.

There is no doubt that Mr. Wilson is an able man and one worthy of any honor to which he might aspire. He has the qualification of having been born and reared in the South and of having spent the greater art of his life since he reached man’s estate in the North. His native state is Virginia, and his youth was spent at Columbia, South Carolina, and in Augusta, this state. If he should be nominated for President his nomination, therefore, could properly be credited to the South, and as there has been much talk in recent years as to the advisability of naming a Southern man for President, it is not improbable that Mr. Harvey’s suggestion will command a good deal of attention.

In fact, it has already been commented upon by a number of Southern papers, and, as far as we have been able to observe, all of the comments have been of a kindly nature.

It is, of course, too soon to speak very positively about Presidential candidates. It is far from clear yet what the issues will be, but if they should be such as to commend themselves to Mr. Wilson we have no doubt that his friends would have no difficulty in securing very favorable consideration of his candidacy.

He isn’t an unknown man, though he has had nothing to do with public office and very little, we assume with politics. As to whether or not he knew that it was Mr. Harvey's intention to bring him out as a Presidential candidate we are not informed, but there isn’t much doubt that Mr. Harvey’s action wasn't distasteful to him.

Mr. Wilson is making a great institution of Princeton University. It is growing rapidly. Only a man of very superior ability could maintain himself at the head of it. We wouldn't be surprised if Mr Harvey's suggestion should be given much more than a passing thought by the Democratic leaders and by Democrats generally.

MAY 19, 1906

Learning and Public Men

Without regard to any particular Presidential candidate, it is high time that the country should begin to appreciate learning as a valuable possession of its public men. Many of those who discuss the suggestion of WOODROW WILSON’S candidacy say that the nomination would be excellent, but that Mr. WILSON is not available because he has not been engaged in practical politics. The truth is that the happiness and fortunes of the country would be greatly enhanced if we could introduce into its government a few idealists, thereby replacing an equal number of practical men. Whatever troubles we are having with our governments, national and state, are owing to the mistakes and the blunders of practical men - that is, men whose idea of politics is to work a machine for the benefit of those who give the directions to those who turn the crank. Most of our disastrous experiments in government, and especially in law-making, might have been avoided if we had been willing to be guided by the universal experience of other peoples and of earlier times. A knowledge of the political history of the world embraces a knowledge of facts and their consequences, which ought to be had by every one who is undertaking the tasks of government. It is a knowledge which, to statesmen of the older countries, and to the statesmen of our own country, to all but those practical politicians who are blinded by the glamour of practical manipulation of basic political machinery, has always seemed to be essential to the proper conduct of government. It was in an eminent degree the mental furniture of those who framed the Constitution of the United States. Without it, the Constitution would not have been the simple, dignified, sufficient instrument it is; more likely it would have contained some of the patent nostrums which disgrace and enfeeble some of our modern constitutions.

It is the misfortune of the country that the practical politician has been powerful enough and influential enough to deprive the nation of the services of the men of “light and leading.” whose learning has especially fitted them to be advisers, legislators, and executive officers of the Republic. To say, at this day, and in view of our political conditions, that ii man learned in the art of government, in the law and custom of the Constitution, is impractical because of his learning, and therefore unfit for the service of the Republic, is, in effect, to assert that the Republic cannot enjoy the services of its own superior men. The comments which come to the WEEKLY on this interesting topic indicate the great need of thought on a condition which, in the last analysis, results from the thoughtless acceptance of the untruth that superior men intellectually are unfitted for the service of democracy by very reason of their superiority. The mere presentation of this logical consequence of much of the comment that reaches us ought to open the eyes of those who have made it. It is, indeed, made to the harm of the country. It is insistence upon a theory that the highest honors of the government must be denied to those who will wear them most reverently, and that the most important services must be performed by men who, to say the least, do not walk upon the higher ranges of our citizenship.

There is one word more to be said upon the availability of WOODROW WILSON, or of any man who, like him, has not engaged in the struggles of politics, has not contended for office in his own behalf, but who has studied and mastered the principles of our government, who has felt their spirit, and who has inspired hundreds of the youth of the country with his teachings and writings. The men who ordinarily nominate candidates may doubt the availability of such a scholar in statecraft, but the people will not be moved by the considerations which act upon the minds of the slate-makers. The Milwaukee Sentinel is a loyal Republican paper. Speaking with a knowledge of practical politics, not always possessed by the practical politicians, but which is illustrated by more than one episode in the history of the country, it points out the high spirit of the people. It says that “were it a matter of referendum to the party rank and file,” the candidacy of one who has little but his availability to justify the naming of him “would hardly stand one chance in a thousand against that sterling and representative American, the president of Princeton University.” The politicians who make slates, and those who believe in their omnipotence. misjudge the intelligence and virtue of the American people. Moreover, they forget facts, momentous facts, of not remote date. They forget that more than once the people have forced the slatemakers to nominate whom the people would, and whom they would not have named. They forget, too, that the people have more than once broken slates, and that nothing is so untrue in this country as the statement that a man is unavailable because party politicians say that he is. The Democratic party must convincc the people, not the party's managers.

From the Hartford (Conn.) “Times”

Who is “the ablest Jeffersonian Democrat in the United States”? The editor of The North American Review asserts that this title belongs to the anonymous author of the leading article in the April number of that periodical, the title of which is, “Whom Will the Democrats Next Nominate for President?" As the main object of the article is to recommend the selection of President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, for this honor, the writer cannot be Mr. Wilson himself. No one will attribute this composition to Princeton's other distinguished resident, Mr. Cleveland. The style is not his, although it is quite possible that the views expressed are. The clearness and vigor of the article are such as we might expect from John G. Carlisle, but he is probably not its author. Nor can it be attributed to Judge Parker, although the ideas presented harmonize well with some that were expressed by the eminent New-Yorker in recent public addresses in the South. It is, perhaps, an easy way to conceal identity to allude to any man merely as “the ablest Jeffersonian Democrat,” for there are a good many Jeffersonian Democrats left, in spite of the admitted excess of the death-rate over births among the Jeffersonians during the past third of a century.

The suggestion that the president of Princeton University shall be the next Democratic candidate for President of the United States is based on two propositions: First, that it would be well to follow Judge Parker’s advice by naming a Southern man (President Wilson was born in Virginia and grew up there); second, that the time has come to look for “Presidential timber” among “the great captains of the higher education.” Mr. Wilson is named because, in addition to being a Virginian and a Democrat, he has shown in his books that “he is, by instinct and education, a statesman”; that “he is a genuine historical scholar, who has proved himself a competent executive”; “a statesman of breadth, depth, and exceptional sagacity ”; an idealist who is at the same time “exceptionally sane”; a man who would ask in a crisis “not what Jefferson did a century ago, but what Jefferson would do now.”

Unquestionably this is the sort of a President the country needs. The eulogist of Mr. Wilson says with much quiet force that far-sighted Democrats are in agreement that "the country needs relief from the strenuous and histrionic methods of federal administration now exemplified in the White House.” We can also agree with him that Judge Parker “would have been elected had he not been pitted against a popular idol.” We are not yet out of the woods into which idol-chasing has led us. But maybe we shall get into the open again before November, 1908.

There are several university and college presidents in the country who are admirably fitted to hold the highest office in the gift of the people. President Eliot, of Harvard, is abundantly qualified, and his elevation to the Presidency of the nation would be, probably, the best thing that could happen. President Wilson, of Princeton, is a younger man. His Southern antecedents are certainly an important element of his eligibility. It is a good thing to propose him, and the seed sown in this North American Review article is not wasted.

From the Columbus (Ga.) “Ledger”

HARPERS WEEKLY has placed Woodrow Wilson in nomination for the Presidency. He would find a solid South behind him.

From the Boston “Record”

Colonel George Harvey, of HARPER'S WEEKLY, has thirteen compelling reasons for choosing Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton, as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. President Wilson is a man of force and magnetism, an orator of broad views, a Southerner resident in New Jersey. He would be an ideal public servant, sane and able. If W.C. Whitney were alive and as active a political influence as he was in 1902, to aid Harvey, the idea would be considered. But who in the present Democratic organization would regard it seriously?

From the Wilmington (Del.) “Every Evening”

HARPER’S WEEKLY urges Woodrow Wilson, president of the University of New Jersey, at Princeton, for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1908. President Wilson is a Virginian by birth and a Jerseyman by adoption, thus being solidly grounded in old-time Democratic associations. His ability is unquestioned, and he would make a candidate for whom thousands of good citizens could vote with great satisfaction. But as he is lacking in political affiliations of the character that lead to high political preferment, nothing is more improbable at this time than his nomination two years hence.

From the Milwaukee “Sentinel”

HARPER’S WEEKLY stands to its guns in the matter of its choice of Woodrow Wilson as Democratic candidate for President in 1908, and points with satisfaction to the brisk breeze of comment stirred by the suggestion. Availability aside, there can be no reasonable question of the excellence of the choice.

The nomination of Mr. Wilson would be a good thing for the country as betokening a return of his party to historic party ideals and first principles, and a sobering up after the radical “crazes” and aberrations that have bedeviled its counsels and alienated its conservatism during the past twelve years or so. Thoughtful Republicans would welcome for the sake of the general good the appearance of a safe and sane united party of opposition. They would welcome the nomination of a man of Mr. Wilson’s large caliber and high character, even though he might in reality be a harder man to beat at the polls than, say, a firebrand like Hearst, whose nomination alone would be a public calamity as inflicting on the country another campaign of disturbance, unrest, and apprehension.

The high character, broad patriotism. profound knowledge of American political history and institutions. executive capacity. and personal fitness for the highest oflice in the gift of the American people of Woodrow Wilson are as the good wine which needs no hush. The best men of both parties could regard the prospect of his election with a sense of at least security. Faith in the “common people” requires the conclusion that if the Democratic nomination were a matter of referendum to the party rank and file such an aspirant as the chief of yellow journalism would hardly stand one chance in a thousand against that sterling and representative American, the president of Princeton University.

From the Toledo Ohio “Blade”

Woodrow Wilson has been nominated for President on the Democratic ticket by HARPER'S WEEKLY. There is at least a suggestion of tall timber in the name.

From the Athens Ga “Banner”

When such strong Northern periodicals as HARPER'S WEEKLY begin to talk about a Southern man like Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency, it is time for the Southern people to begin to take interest in such a movement.

JUNE 2, 1906

A commentator on the suggestion that WOODROW WILSON would be a good Presidential candidate for 1908 is troubled with a new thought. It is this:

As a rule the man who writes history is not regarded as possessing the peculiar characteristics of the politician which qualify him to make it in a government which derives power through popular acclaim.

If it be true that the man who possesses the arts of the modern politician is the only man who is reasonably sure of success with the people of the United States, this republic has sunk to a very low political and social level. Moreover, if the people of the United States are so shallow that they can be led by the transparent wiles of the party leader, or hack, or tout - whichever he may be - to prefer the man who is seeking place for his own or his party’s gain, to a man who has the wisdom and the knowledge of a statesman, they are in so bad a way that some one, for them, ought to consider seriously the propriety of their surrendering the right to govern themselves.

From the Baltimore “World”

HARPER'S WEEKLY has suggested President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, as a possible practical candidate for the Democratic nominee in 1908.

Why not ?

This country has during the past decade witnessed the presence of several men of various professions in the Presidential chair - McKinley, Roosevelt, Cleveland, et al. Bryan, radical; Parker, judicial candidate for the highest office in the land, have both gone down beneath an avalanche of Republican votes; Roosevelt, advocate of the strenuous life, bear-hunter, man of all trades, in whose opinion the only correct method of enforcing the performance of any act is either to employ the “big stick” or else appeal to the people.

The United States has had enough of Roosevelt. That he made a good executive officer in some respects cannot be denied. That he was, generally speaking, one of the best we have had for a long time is a statement frequently made by his admirers; and yet can any one doubt for a moment but that a continued policy along the lines laid down by our present distinguished Chief Executive would result in other than the establishment of a one-man power? Roosevelt has done well enough - but we have had enough of him.

Experience, bitter experience, told by the count of the ballots, proves that American Democracy must, indeed, advance a strong candidate if it would make any bid whatever for success in the Presidential contest two years hence. A strong but conservative, a mild-mannered but firm man is the character whom Democracy should choose to lead her clans to victory; and in naming Professor Wilson, Colonel Harvey has made a wise, a noble selection, at the same time paying a tribute to Wilson's qualifications as a man.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1906

To William J. Bryan: Greeting

Your public utterances we, in common with millions of your fellow-citizens, await with keen interest. Most of your theories have been stolen and applied somewhat ferociously in practice, but you may have others and new ones. If so, permit us to pray quietly that they be no worse. You are doubtless aware that if the Democratic convention were to be held to-morrow, you would receive a third nomination for the Presidency of the United States by acclamation. It may please you also to learn that a vast majority of citizens are firmly convinced that there is only one Republican who could hope to withstand the effect of your present popularity. Truly a gratifying and happy homecoming, wholly without precedent, and surely most comforting to one willing to die with a cause and trust to time for a satisfactory resurrection! Fortunately, you are able to turn a bland countenance to the future. “To are well aware that your desire to become President is not insatiable. We know from your own lips that you believe that your place in history will be fixed, not by any political position, however exalted. you may bold, but by the steadfastness of your adherence to the principles you have advocated. Many, though neither you nor we, would be surprised two years hence to see you stand upon the platform in the national convention. and ask the country to re-establish a truly democratic government of the whole people. under the banner of such a one as WOODROW WILSON.

NOVEMBER 24, 1906

The sole requisites for the re-establishment of the Democratic party upon an enduring basis are an Issue and a Man.

The issue: Extinguishment of tariff taxation now bearing upon the poor, and the substitution, for revenue purposes, of graduated inheritance and income taxes to be paid chiefly by those whose surplus wealth has been acquired through privileges accorded by the state and opportunities afforded by a democracy.

The man: WOODROW WILSON, of Virginia and New Jersey.

The Democrats of New Jersey possess a rare and glorious opportunity to point the way, and make a striking contrast by naming the Man as their candidate for United States Senator to succeed JOHN F. DRYDEN.

Can they rise to the occasion?

DECEMBER 22, 1906

“What is all this talk we hear about Mr. WOODROW WILSON, of Princeton. N.J .? From the dimensions of a mild and fugitive intellectual speculation which might readily have passed as a mere distraction of the late summer it has grown of late far more concrete and ominous. At Washington just at present it may be said to have reached the proportions of an animated discussion; a discussion, too, of no particular geographical or political restrictions. What does it all mean? Is it that we are asked thus early to believe that HEARST was really the salvation of the Democracy? We confess that unaided we should never have penetrated that disguise!” - Leading Editorial in the New York "Sun” of December 7.

APRIL 6, 1907

No Deal, Square or Otherwise

It is difficult to believe that any one who will carefully read and consider Mr. WILSON’s speech can fail to recognize not only its soundness and saneness, but its essential Americanism. The proposition that there should be no class, or classes, in this country favored by our laws is fundamental democratic truth; and Mr. WILSON clearly points out that we have departed from this general principle; that we have built up whatever law-sustained special privileges we possess; and that a strong sentiment, perhaps a prevailing sentiment, among us favors the punishment of our erstwhile favorites while we retain the vicious principle that has created and fostered them. Mr. Roosevelt’s own refusal to consider tariff reduction, his belief that it is comparatively immaterial, are evidences of the prevalence of this sentiment. His loyal advocacy of the evils of trade-unionism, of its monopolistic features, of its demands for the recognition in law of unionists as composing a favored class, although they are a minority of labor, is another evidence. Mr. WILSON is opposed to all class legislation, and it is this view which we have in mind when we say that his statesmanship is not only sound, but is essentially American because it is essentially democratic. The difference between this statesmanship and another which has captivated some minds by its seeming fairness is illustrated by the following extract from Mr. WILSON’s speech:

If we are to restore the purity of our law and the freedom of our life we must see to it - in all moderation and all fairness - that no class whatever is given artificial privileges or advantages, and that our life moves free again of fear or favor from whatever quarter or whatever class. What we need is not a square deal, but no deal at all - old-fashioned equity and harmony of conditions, a purged business and a purged law.

How much nobler and higher than the other is the ideal of Mr. Wilson will be seen at once by all who have not forgotten or rejected this Republic’s own ideals of individual liberty and equality. It is one of the hopeful signs of a doubtful time that Mr. WILSON's speech is greeted sympathetically and cordially by the independent and Democratic press throughout the country.

MAY 4, 1907

Some of the Candidates Suggested

In looking about for some one who might be the candidate of a real opposition party, many names have been suggested. Governor JOHNSON, of Minnesota, is a recent one, and still more recent are the names of Judge GRAY and of JUDSON HARMON. All these men have elements of strength among the Democratic voters, Judge GRAY and Mr. HARMON, perhaps especially among the Democratic voters of the Southern states. Both of them possess also the respect of the better element of the Republican party with whom they have come in contact. They are public men of character, of patriotism, and they possess those qualifications of statesmanship which, in England and in all European parliamentary countries, almost inevitably insure their possessors continuous public careers. It is especially worthy of note in discussing this subject or in mentioning contemporaneous phenomena that the serious suggestion that, next year, the Democratic candidate Ought to come from the South is made by Northerners. It is the well-known fact that the Southerners themselves hesitate; they are not sure that it is yet their time, or that they possess precisely the man whom they would be willing to see nominated. There is one name that is constantly recurring to the minds of men who are looking for a possible candidate of the kind who desire a President who will put an end to spectacular turmoil; who will be a true reformer, but who will not be willing to break the law or to play obnoxious politics for the purpose of securing what he regards as reforms. Mr. WOODROW WILSON's candidacy was first suggested. in print, in these columns. It was accepted kindly, notably by the South, whence he came to the North, but at first the suggestion was often regarded as academic; but it becomes more and more apparent, as time goes on, that it was a very practical suggestion, so that the thoughts of serious men are coming back to it again and again, as was pointed out in the article copied from the New York Times in the last number of the WEEKLY. So far, WOODROW WILSON is the man who most satisfies the desires and convictions of men who for good and patriotic reasons would like to see a change; who think that Mr. ROOSEVELT's administration is injurious to the country; and who will strongly desire to defeat any candidate whom he may oppose upon the Republican party - a desire that has within the week been severely rebuked by more than one prominent Republican newspaper.

JULY 27, 1907

Woodrow Wilson on Liberty

WOODROW WILSON has spoken a great many wise and statesmanlike words, but he has rarely spoken more wisely, more patriotically, and more convincingly than he did at Jamestown on the Fourth of July. Several great truths were spread forth in his speech, and one among them is especially pertinent at this time, when it seems to be the object of government to seek the objects of those who are administering it by evading, or twisting, or in other ways defying the law. The founders of this government, he said, “loved the law” - not more law, nor less law, nor even better law, but “law they could rely upon and live by.” The law, to them, was not to be escaped or twisted to meet, the ends or designs or whims or fancies or dreams of those charged with the duty of administering and executing it. And again he said: “Too much law is too much government, and too much government is too little individual privilege.” All this has a bearing upon the efforts to control, to restrict, to destroy, individual effort by laws that give to government powers which are hostile to individual liberty. Mr. WILSON does not believe that corporations and their business should be destroyed; that the community should be deprived of their services; that the growth of production, so wonderful within a hundred years, with its cheapening of products and of their transportation, should be stopped or checked because some individuals holding offices, it may be, in the corporations have been guilty of crimes. Punish the guilty individuals, is his contention, but do not deprive the world of the beneficent work and its results of which some of the criminally disposed have taken advantage. And this is sound statesmanship, and the opposite is demagogy, or worse.

AUGUST 3, 1907

On the Main Line

HARPER'S WEEKLY, which is endeavoring to restore "safety and sanity" in the Democratic party, gives a good deal of attention in its last issue to the qualifications of Senator CULBERSON of Texas as a Presidential candidate. Mr. CULBERSON is all right, but why should Colonel HARVEY have sidetracked his "logical candidate" of a year ago, President WOODROW WILSON of Princeton University? A President-maker cannot afford to be fickle in matters of "logic." - New York "Tribune."

We have never designated President WILSON as a "logical candidate," for the quite simple reason that we do not know what a logical candidate is; maybe he is one who, if elected, would not appoint illogical ambassadors. In any case Dr. WILSON continues on the main line, has been going particularly strong since he declared that he would send law-breakers to jail instead of merely at them for political effect, and his name will presented to the next Democratic national convention by the still sovereign state of New Jersey.

AUGUST 24, 1907

The Ideal Candidate

Woodrow Wilson, a native Virginian at the head of a great Northern university, and a Democrat by birth, training, and conviction, would honor his party as a candidate and his country as a President. But despite the worthy intentions ascribed to New Jersey, there is little chance of his nomination, although there are good grounds for believing he would be strong at the polls. His name would be well calculated to solidify the South, and be a tower of strength with the great and growing independent vote of the North. Furthermore, his scholarship, his mastery of the principles of political economy, and his unquestioned intellectual capacity for the Presidential office would compel the respect even of his opponents. The probability that the Democratic party will not adopt Mr. Wilson for its standard-bearer implies not that it might not do so with credit and advantage. At any rate, Colonel Harvey, having proposed the name of a wise and worthy Democrat to lead his party in 1908, is to be commended for standing stanchly by his candidate. And the Democracy itself will show superior judgment if, in its crucial action in convention, it shall name nobody worse than Wilson. - Troy “Press.”

JANUARY 18, 1908

A WINNING TICKET

Wilson and Johnson

For President

From the New York “World”

If the Democratic party is to be saved from falling into the hands of WILLIAM J. BRYAN as permanent receiver, a Man must be found - and soon. Dissociated opposition will no longer suffice. There must arise a real leader around whom all Democrats uninfected by populism, and thousands of dissatisfied Republicans, may rally with the enthusiasm which springs only from a certainty of deserving success and at least a chance of achieving it.

The Man’s principles must be sound.

He must be a defender of the Constitution, but not the worshiper of a fetish. He must realize that “a return to the old ways” of government by Plutocracy, Privilege, Protection, and Plunder is impossible; that the moral regeneration begun in violence must be completed in sobriety. He must be opposed, as a matter of policy, to gross extravagance in the use of public funds, and he must detest, on principle, any taxing of the people beyond the actual requirements of their government. He must favor immediate reduction of the tariff. He must be a hater in equal measure of paternalism and socialism. He must set his face like flint against government ownership of railroads, initiative and referendum, government guarantees of bank deposits, and all other populistic notions. He must demand from all corporations publicity, obedience to law, and recognition of the superior rights of the whole people, but he must also observe the obligations of the state to protect its own artificial creation in all legitimate and authorized undertakings. He must favor the singling out and rigorous punishment of individual wrong-doers, not merely the fining of an impersonal corporation. He must be a radical conserver, not a destroyer, of both public and private credit. He must be an opponent of imperialism, militarism, and jingoism. He must prefer too little government to too much government, and must insist unoeasingly upon rigid application of the basic principle of government by the people through their authorized representatives in Congress in preference to any government by commission.

The Man’s personality must be inspiring.

Certain personal attributes are essential to successful candidacy. Known fidelity to high ideals. Unquestioned integrity. Veracity. Courage. Caution. Intellectuality. Wisdom. Experience. Achievement. Breadth of mind. Strength of body. Clarity of vision. Lucidity of expression. Freedom from contaminating association. Universal respect and confidence of his fellow-men. Simplicity in manner of livng. Eloquence. Human sympathy. Alertness. Optimism. Enthusiasm. In a word, the rare blending of uncommon intelligence and plain common sense in what might be termed Sane Idealism. Finally and practically: Availability!

Such are the requirements - many and exacting. One Democrat who unquestionably meets these qualifications is WOODROW WILSON, president of Princeton University.

Dr. WILSON is primarily a scholar - an historical scholar - who in the course of his work and growth has become a statesman of breadth, depth, and capacity, a true Democrat who, though steeped in Jeffersonian doctrines, asks not what JEFFERSON did a century ago, but what JEFFERSON would do now; an able theorist, but a no less competent executive, who has had much administrative experience as the head of a great university.

Not only is WOODROW WILSON qualified in every respect for the great office of President of the United States, but he is an available candidate.

Who else could surely carry New Jersey? Who would stand a better chance of carrying New York? Who would more certainly restore Missouri and Maryland to the Democratic column and eliminate all possible doubt of the result in any other Southern state? Who has a stronger personal following, fewer enemies, nothing to retract, no entanglemcnts, no commitments to capitalism or demagogism?

Who would more surely command the undivided support of the powerful independent press? Who would appeal more strongly to the latent moral sense which twice elected CLEVELAND? Who would inspire a more hopeful feeling of security and stability in the minds of all business men engaged in honest enterprise?

The World has already presented JOHN A. JOHNSTON, Governor of Minnesota, as an available Western candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. It takes equal pleasure in presenting WOODROW WILSON as a Southern candidate, no less available and with Presidential qualifications exceedcd by those of no man whose name will be presented to any national convention.

JANUARY 25, 1908

A Candidate from the East and South

There is a good deal more to be said in favor of WOODROW WILSON’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination than was brought out in the World. In the first place should be noted certain considerations suggested by the facts that he is by birth and rearing a native of Virginia; that he was admitted to the bar in Georgia, and practised in Atlanta until he renounced the law for the calling of an educator: and that the lady whom he married was a native of Savannah. There is no doubt, then, that he would be accepted all over the country as a genuine representative of the South, although, like JAMES MADISON, he was sent as a young man to Princeton, and is now the president of that university. Is it not expedient that the next Democratic nominee for the Presidency should be a son of the South? Is it not admitted b many large-minded Republicans, as well as by all orthern Democrats and all independents, that the South, although nominally restored to the full privileges of states in the Umon when she was allowed to send Senators and Representatives to Congress, is still partially discriminated against so long as her sons are practically debarred from the highest: honor in the gift of the Republic? Shall we ever witness a veritable union, not of law, but of hearts. until, with the cordial concurrence of a large part of the North, a Southern man becomes Chief Magistrate?

Another truth that cannot be driven home too often or with too much emphasis is the complication of the question of nominating a. Southern man for the Presidency with the imperative necessity that the first post bellum Southern administration shall he indisputabl successful. To insure such success it is indispensab e that the temper of the Republicans, if beaten in 1908, shall be resigned and acquiescent, for they will remain masters of the federal Senate, and, if vindictive and defiant, could paralyze all the efforts of a Democratic Chief Magistrate and a Democratic House of Representatives. Once more we repeat what we said in another place nearly two years ago, that if a Southern President is to leave behind him a bright record of constructive statesmanship and useful legislation he must have the good-will, if not the active support, of the whole country; and such good-will is only to be gained from a conviction, deep implanted at the North, as well as at the South, that both sections can count upon his sympathy, and, above all, upon that intimate acquaintance without which sympathy is fruitless. Such a conviction unquestionabl exists with reference to WOODROW WILSON. Is such all-embracing sympathy, such intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the views, wishes, and interests of all sections of the Republic just now possessed by any other distinguished son of the South?

There is another point of view from which the nomination of WOODROW WILSON might not only exercise a healing and unifying influence upon the sections, but also have a freshening and invigorating effect on the whole electorate. The American voter is pretty tired of military men, professional or amateur, considered in the light of candidates for the Presidency. He is also just a bit tired of lawyers, and even of judges. He has become alive to the fact that, as things are now, the intellect of the nation does not flow solely or mainly through military, forensic, judicial, and legislative channels. He knows that in our day industry has its great captains and education its field marshals. Nor will any man now deny the right of eminent and fruitful workers in the educational field to challenge the highest oflice in the gift of the American people on the score of merit and of availability. As a matter of fact. even in the past may be found precedents for the selection of such men for distinguished functions under the federal government. GEORGE BANCROFT, who was Scentary of the Navy in the POLK administration, and subsequently represented the country in London and in Berlin, was by profession a college tutor and a schoolmaster. EDWARD EVERETT left the presidency of Harvard College to become Secretary of State. ANDREW D. WHITE, formerly president of Cornell University, has been invited more than once to occupy the highest posts in the nation's diplomatic service. As we pointed out twenty months ago, no one has ever disputed that the statesmanlike duties assumed by these organizers, directors, and inspirers of the higher education were admirably discharged. Why, then, should not the Democratic party in 1908, when seeking a nominee for the Presidency who will not only deserve but command success, turn its eyes in the same promising direction? It certainly could find in WOODROW WILSON, the president of Princeton University, a man richly qualified for the leadership of the federal government by great natural ability, by long and distinguished administrative experience, by the illuminating and invigorating trend of his studies, by his exceptional popularity, and by his unique power of securing the confidence, the sympathy, and the support of all sections of the Union.

There is still another point of view from which the name of WOODROW WILSON deserves careful consideration in connection with the next Democratic nomination. With the exception of ex-President CLEVELAND, he is the only widely known and eminent American citizen who at the present time is a resident of New Jersey. Now there is not a state in the Union, not even Virginia nor Massachusetts, that has so much state pride as New Jersey. Perhaps for the reason that uninformed New-Yorkers sometimes speak of her with condescension, New Jersey passionately covets the recognition and appreciation which she believes herself to deserve. New Jersey has never had a President of the United States, and if one of her native-born or adopted sons should be nominated for that great office by a national convention, the difficulty of his opponent would consist, not in averting his sweeping of the state, but in preventing him from securing a unanimous vote. In 1908 only a Jerseyman will be absolutely certain to carry New Jersey, though we do not dispute the World’s assertion that Governor JOHNSON would run considerably better than would Mr. BRYAN in that state.

What is true of New Jersey is measurably true of New York also. There is a multitude of Princeton men in the Empire commonwealth and its metropolis; and wherever you meet a Princeton man you meet a sturdy, devoted, and indefatigable champion of WOODROW WILSON. He could rely with almost equal confidence on all college graduates who are alive to the magnitude of the services rendered to the nation by organizers and administrators of our great universities, and who believe that the time has come for such services to receive due recognition. For this reason. and because the breadth and warmth of his human sympathies, together with the soundness and equity of his political and economical views - he is a tariff revisionist - would commend and endear him to the great mass of the people, we believe that WOODROW WILSON would be more likely than anv other Democrat to carry New York by a handsome majority.

We scarcely need refer to the effect of nominating a son of Virginia for the Presidency on the states which in ante-bellum days were spoken of collectively as constituting the “South.” There is not a doubt that WOODROW WILSON could win back for the Democracy every one of the Southern states now or lately lost - namely, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. All the rest of the Southern commonwealths he would hold in a vise of steel. On the score, then. of availability, conjoined with the qualifications of high character and eminent ability. what Democrat can possibly vie with the President of Princeton University?

MAY 15, 1909

Looking Ahead

We now expect to see WOODROW WILSON elected Governor of the state of New Jersey in 1910 and nominated for President in 1912 upon a platform demanding tariff revision downward.

MAY 15, 1909

An Old but True Saying

We believe Colonel GEORGE HARVEY will be willing to vote the Democratic ticket if the party will nominate somebody that nobody else would support. - Houston Post.

One with God is a majority.

Marse Henry on the Road

We are happy to note that on the very day - February 16th - when he reached the age of three-score and ten, Marse HENRY WATTERSON began to perk up. Having observed that "half the editorial columns that come to us are headed 'The Democratic Opportunity,'" he pushed the scales from his eyes and took a look around, with cheering results. Heartily approving our suggestion to Democrats to get wise and busy, he continues:

"Easier said than done" is the comment which practical men, conversant with affairs, will make to this undeniable generalization. Colonel HARVEY feels the need the more acutely, since nowhere have the local conditions been so discouraging as in New York. These seem to be mending, however. Let us hope that they will mend elsewhere as well. If they do, it must be through the process of education and development, because the old order having passed from the scene, we shall have largely to rely upon the new order, which is actually in the saddle and has come to stay.

As Colonel HARVEY says, there is Governor HARMON, of Ohio. There is, as he says, Governor MARSHALL of Indiana. Both may be re-elected. That would place them in the running and far in the lead. The one might defeat the other. That would open the way for a third man. We doubt whether any party would go directly to a university for its Presidential nominee; but all that is said of WOODROW WILSON is true, and, if the Democrats of New Jersey make him Governor, whoever comes off winner in the national convention will have to beat him.

Then there is FOLK. “What’s the matter with FOLK?” The politicians out in Missouri do not seem to warm to FOLK. But neither did the politicians in Ohio warm to TAFT. Sometimes parties have to do as they may, and politicians - especlally local and state politicians - as they must; their adaptability, as a rule, fairly spontaneous and readily adjusted. Then, there is GAYNOR - !

We looks towards you, Colonel HARVEY, we looks towards you, and we renews the assurance of our distinguished consideration!

We cannot consider Marse HENRY's conversion as complete, but it is to rejoice to see him seated on the anxious bench alongside the recalcitrant Deacon. It is only a question of time now with both of them. Perhaps it will cheer them up to hear that we have looked into that little matter in Ohio and find that Governor HARMON is as sure of re-election as the Democrats are of carrying New York and New Jersey.

APRIL 9, 1910

President Wilson's Speech

Whoever is interested in the success of the Democratic party will do well to read on pages 9 and 10 of this issue of the WEEKLY the recent discourse of President WOODROW WILSON upon what that party must do to deserve success.

“We must supply efficient leaders,” says Dr. WILSON, “and eschew all lower personal objects of politics.” That is true.

And what are the higher objects that he would have the Democrats attempt?

He names them, and in few words. The Democrats must serve the whole people rather than the “business interests ” alone; they must save the individual from being crushed or unnecessarily hampered by the organization of society; they must follow the Constitution and not twist it or stretch it unduly; they must deal with the trusts not as partners of government, but merely as conveniences in our economic development; they must take the government out of the business of patronage, and simplify it, and “challenge the people . . . to depend upon themselves rather than upon fostering powers lodged in groups of individuals.”

But read Dr. WILSON's own words. They best convey his ideas, and the ideas are fundamentally sound and important, and deserve to be thoroughly assimilated by Democrats who seek a sure foundation for their hopes to rest upon.

JULY 23, 1910

Progressive Politics

The Arbiter of the Destinies of the Human Race, having chopped down six mighty elms in the interest of conservation, and having swiped the beads of perspiration from his manly brow, assumed the judgment seat, summoned the varlets of the press, and said:

I want to make it clear that I am seeing both sides. I wish you would make that emphatic. I want to see regulars and insurgents, party men and independents, Democrats as well as Republicans."

"You don't want to see the Democrats win next fall do you Colonel?" he was asked.

"Not if the Republicans do the right thing." he answered, promptly.

Good Work! Clearly it is up to “the Republicans.” Will they do “the right thing” or won't they? We should like really to know, but inasmuch as the only things so far officially approved as right are Looos in Massachusetts and BEVERIDGE in Indiana, we guess we shall have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, what about the Democrats who are thus graciously invited to bask in royal favor in the event of Republicans going wrong? In New York, affairs continue unsettled. Over in New Jersey the Democrats have persuaded their best man - WOODROW WILSON - to accept the nomination for Governor if it shall come to him unsought and with substantial unanimity. As the Evening Post well and truly says:

WOODROW WILSON has done the right thing, and in precisely the right way, in stating his attitude toward the proposal to make him the Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey. He will “not in any circumstances do anything to obtain ” the nomination; he does not “wish to draw away from” his present duties and responsibilities as head of Princeton Univcrsity; but if. as many well-informed persons have assured him, it is “ the wish and hope of a decided majority of the thoughtful Democrats of the State that he should accept” the party’s nomination for the Governorship, he would deem it a “duty as well as an honor and a privilege to do so.” If he should be nominated, it may confidently be predicted that he will express himself on the questions of the day with the same frankness and the same dignity with which he has stated his position in regard to the acceptance of the nomination. The New Jersey campaign would be sure to become one of the centers of interest throughout the country, besides being of a character to tone up the political situation in how Jersey itself. Already it is stated that Republican managers are bracing up to the necessity of finding a candidate fitted to be measured against WOODROW WILSON in case he should be put up by the Democrats. His statement of his attitude absolves him from the necessity of paying any further attention to the pre-nomination canvass, but it makes it incumbent on earnest Democrats in New Jersey to use every effort toward the securing of a candidacy which would help both the party and the cause of good government not only in their own state, but throughout the country.

Likewise the World:

In their search for a candidate for Governor the Democrats of New Jersey aimed high and they have been successful. When Dr. WOODROW WILSON signifies a willingness to accept political leadership in that state there is encouragement for the organization ever here. Good men and great men are not likely to force themselves on the party, but they will be found and they will respond to the call of the people if they are wanted.

An educator by profession and never a politician, Dr. WILSON is more of a statesman than most of the men who have passed their lives in public office. He understands the philosophy of government. He appreciates the virtues, the capacity, and the limitations of popular rule. He has meditated, written, and spoken much on all phases of our politics, and his utterances will be scrutinized in vain for demagogy, violence, or folly. He has a penetrating, and an informing mind. He has a patriotic desire to be helpful. Above all, he has character.

If the people of New Jersey make Dr. WILSON Governor they will have a great Chief Magistrate.

And the Sun:

Whether or not WOODROW WILSON is the next Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey, whether or not, that is, the nomination goes to him on his own terms as representing “the wish and hope of a decided majority of the thoughtful Democrats" of his state, the fact that he is willing to take it. so offered, and would regard it as “an honor and a privilege " as well as a duty, is one of not a few happy omens for the national Democracy.

Too long that party has been the object, and the just object, of general contempt, of its own contempt. Futile, impotent, Bryanized, bedlamized, it has held out nothing to honorable ambition. A future of hopeless fatuity seemed to lay before it. Many of the men who voted its national ticket did so only because they were sure that it would be defeated. It seemed incapable of effectual opposition, incapable of enlarged views. It was given over to petty brabbles and exploited for the benefit of a charlatan.

Well, a change has come over it. It has got a man or two in conspicuous office who is recommending it by well-considered efficient action, by real reforms and economies. Not, merely on account of Republican factions or mistakes, but by its own positive achievement, it is earning remission for its idiocies and proving itself fit for power. Its present is fruitful. It can nourish reasonable hopes. Democrats of intellect and sense, mcn highly fitted for public life, can feel once more that the post of honor is the public station.

And the Newark Evening News:

Whatever the event. there can be no leadership of the WOODROW WILSON type is the one thing that would rehabilitate the Democratic party and place the coming campaign upon a dignified level.

And the Boston Herald:

It would be a long leap from WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN to WOODROW WILSON.

It would, indeed. But isn’t it high time for the Democratic party to make some sort of jump? It has been shivering on the brink of oblivion ever since the Orator from the Platte donned the crown of thorns, and, until quite recently, it has seemed likely to just peter out. But the immediate question is not of the Presidency, but of the Governorship of a great state. Goodness knows New Jersey needs a big man. She now has a chance to get one, and should, in all conscience, seize the opportunity. Let other commonwealths take heart and do likewise! The states cannot hope to retain the power and dignity scrupulously withheld for them by the Constitution unless they install their biggest men in the biggest places. New Jersey is setting the pace. Will the others heed her admirable example?

The Big State of Jersey

Curiously enough, the only note sounded in New Jersey in antagonism to the prospective candidacy of WOODROW WILSON for Governor emanates from one of the ablest and most independent public journals in the state - the Newark Sunday Call. No less odd than its attitude, moreover, are its reasons. “A good many of us,” it says, “ would vote for President WILSON on the simple ground that a man of his brains and energy would be pretty certain to make good in any office within the gift of the people of his state.” But, alas! “it is just a little state,” and “there have been those who have said that they are afraid New Jersey with Governor Wilson might be top-heavy.” If so, so much the better for the state. But is not our Newark contemporary unduly modest? Out of fifty-two states and territories, New Jersey stands sixteenth in population and sixth in industry. It has $716,000,000 of capital invested in manufacturing, pays 266,000 wage-earners $128,000,000 a year in wages, and turns out nearly $800,000,000 of products. Only New York, Pennsylvania, lllinois. Massachusetts, and Ohio surpass her in this respect - and Ohio, despite her vastly greater area, is very little ahead. Even among cities, the home of the Sunday Call stands sixteenth, and its neighbor, Jersey City, seventeenth, in population. A little state? Not at all. It is one of the biggest in the Union, and it ought to have in its Executive Mansion - which also it ought to have, but hasn't - its very biggest man. In view of the fact that Mr. TAFT got a plurality of 82,000, it may not put him there, but - you never can tell.

AUGUST 6, 1910

The Effect of a Candidacy

The governments that are best regulated and have most vitality are those which, by means of their institutions, can renew themselves. And the way to renew themselves is to bring the government back to its original principles.

This was the utterance of a statesman who lived centuries ago:

I want to find the best man for the office: the man who is most acceptable to the rank and file of the Republican party and the independent voters.

Or, as revised for publication, in view of certain criticism:

If I am consulted, my position is that we must find, not only the best man for the office, but the man most desired by the great bulk of the Republican and independent voters.

This was the utterance of a politician of the present day.

The two modes of procedure thus indicated are wholly divergent. With respect to the making of political issues, the one upholds reversion to principle; the other subserves expediency. Applied to the selection of candidates for public office, by the one character is considered the prime requisite; by the other, availability. It matters not to the directive politician what may be the real purpose of a nominee, so be it he has given no offense to one or more of various classes, and consequently, upon grounds of negation, can be expected to catch the votes of all. The sole aim is success at the polls, and all means, however disingenuous and seemingly discreditable, are held to be justified by the end in view. Per contra, to the mind of the patriotic statesman, triumph upon such terms seems unworthy and is consequently undesired. The ultimate effect of precedent established by the adoption of wrongful methods is reckoned more harmful than the temporary gain thus acquired, and no hesitation is felt in putting the burden of rectification of temporary error upon the better understanding of the future. But, we are informed, concept such as this is idealism, and attempt to apply it in an intensely practical age would be futile.

Surely, if this be a statement of fact, thoughtful citizens must regard the immediate future of the Republic with no little foreboding. But is the premise correct? Is the assertion true? Admit conditions whose existence cannot be denied. Grant that an ignorant and selfish charlatan, by virtue of his attractive personality, appealing eloquence, and helpful environment, has virtually controlled one great political party, to its infinite hurt, with respect to both principle and policy, for sixteen long years. Grant that another adventurous spirit, by exercise of sheer daring and matchless cunning, has, in the same historic interval, achieved unprecedented personal ascendancy in the dominant organization. Grant that a rapacious clique thwarted an honest Chief Magistrate’s best endeavors to lift some of the burdens of taxation from the shoulders of a long-suffering people. Grant that, in many states, notably in our greatest, the best intentions of high-minded Executives have been rendered nugatory by jealous party leaders, drunk with obvious power derived from secret sources. Grant that corruption continues to be the silent partner of politics in scores of municipal and local governments. Must we, therefore, assume that the American people have definitely renounced their allegiance to ideals, have forfeited their self-respect, have parted with their common sense?

We hope not - and we have reason to think not. The reason is this:

For a score of years an important Eastern state has been misruled by satraps of a party whose authority has been sustained by olficial patronagefederal and state. The people have chafed under such dispensation and have craved a change; but the sole alternative offered by the opposition, promising no better, was not acceptable.

So the matter rested, with every prospect of yet another disheartening campaign involving a choice between candidates named by two trading “machines,” until a certain recent day, when suddenly there appeared, like a meteor in the sky, the announcement that a fully equipped and most eminent citizen would accept his party’s nomination if it should come to him unsought and without entail. His message was simple and direct. He had no wish for the place; he had other work of the utmost importance in hand; he did not say, but all knew, that his election would involve great personal sacrifices; he would prefer immeasurably to remain at the head of a great university - but, all his life, he had preached the duty of citizenship, all his life he had lamented the tendency to evade public responsibilities, all his life he had urged subordination of personal inclinations to public service. If. then, as so it seemed, a large number of his fellow-citizens sincerely believed that the occasion demanded him as his party’s candidate, he could not fail to heed the call. regardless of the result at the polls, without giving the lie in practice to all that, as an educator, he had preached.

Behold the effect! Immediately the managers of the party in power awoke to the necessity of revising their calculations. The “average” candidate would not now serve. They must find a man of the highest standard to cope with such a one in opposition. Their most outspoken public journals emphatically declared the state to be “already lost” in the event of their failure or refusal to do so. Immediately, too, provisions were changed throughout. the state with respect to candidates for the Legislature. The opposing party at last beheld a chance to win under inspiring leadership if only they should nominate their best men. To offset this sentiment of encouragement, the party in power foresaw the need of naming their best. The entire face of state politics was changed and the standard of fitness for public position was raised overnight by the simple declaration of a conscientious citizen.

Beyond the boundaries of the commonwealth, moreover, the effect has been no less marked and gratifying. New life has been injected into the decrepit and apparently decaying old party of the masses, demands for sane platforms and strong nominations have been well-nigh universal, a higher level is sought throughout the country, and a higher level will surely be attained, by the one party in the hope of scoring at last, and by the other as the only possible means of holding its own.

WOODROW WILSON may not be elected Governor of New Jersey. He may not even be nominated. He is not really an “available” candidate. He has offended Capital. He has offended Labor. He has rebuked Bigotry. He has condemned License. Practically every class, whose favor the modern politician quoted above would cultivate, has fallen under the ban of his unreserved and unwavering judgment. We ourselves have the honor of differing with him to some extent respecting American government of the Philippines. His very nature forbids trimming sails to catch popular breezes, and no power or ambition could, in our judgment, divert his adhesion a hair's-breadth from the statesman’s utterance quoted above:

The governments that are best regulated and have most vitality are those which, by means of their institutions, can renew themselves. And the way to renew themselves is to bring the government back to its original principles.

That is not Radicalism. It is not Reactionism. It is prudent Progression. Upon that broad platform, if any, we suspect, WOODROW WILSON will stand or fall, as the case may be, with the perfect serenity of one who has satisfied his conscience by expressing his willingness to perform a civic duty.

That the election of a man of such undoubted ability, courage, and character would be stimulating and a godsend to the entire country is, we believe, beyond question. But the most important achievement has already been wrought. The resounding plaudits that have greeted his expression of willingness to become - in the old-fashioned phrase - a true servant - not a wilful master - of the public, proves conclusively that the American people have been fooled this time as long as they can be fooled, and await with eagerness opportunities to show that they have not renounced their allegiance to ideals, have not forfeited their selfrespect, have not parted with their common sense.

So much at least has been accomplished.

September 10, 1910

President Wilson to the Lawyers

Everybody seems to agree that nowadays, right here in free America, democracy needs a lot of looking after. The note of free-and-easy confidence and optimism on the subject, once so common, is grown decidedly rare. People may differ about the precise character of the danger. While some fear that “the interests ” will simply go on increasing their power, others are more concerned lest there be a sudden revulsion to Socialism. But that there is danger to democracy in the way business is now carried on, and that something must be done about it - something serious and thoroughgoing and difficult - this feeling is in the air. Along with it goes the desire for guidance and counsel, the demand and searching, more or less unconscious, but more and more urgent, for leadership. Now this demand is directed toward the politicians, now toward the scholars, now toward the clergy and others committed to good works, now toward those very masters in business whose power is the most disturbing feature of the situation. In an address before the American Bar Association at Chattanooga last week, President WOODROW WILSON, of Princeton, turns it full upon the lawyers.

He speaks as himself a lawyer, and the reasons he gives why our present emergency presents to his profession a peculiar and transcendent opportunity and obligation cannot be lightly dismissed. It is hardly too much to say that he makes out his case; that he shows that the bar is the profession, that the lawyers are the men, whose aid and counsel democracy in America is at present peculiarly in need of.

Democracy in Need of Legal Advice

To show how President WILSON shows this would he to give in different form a great part of an address which would much better be read in the form he himself gave to it; but to indicate briefly the train of thought he follows may be permissible.

Our present struggle, he points out, like all the past struggles of society, is a struggle for law. The history of liberty is a history of law. What we are fighting for is not right ideas about this new order in business, about corporations and trusts, about our own and other people's rights and duties, but the embodying and establishing of those right ideas in law, so that society shall be actually conformed to them. And the need is not merely for law, but for a kind of law that laymen will not readily find or frame. It comes, too, at a time when the understanding of law, particularly constitutional law, is far less general than it used to be, and also the interest in law; at a time when legislatures listen with impatience to constitutional discussions; when the great mass of lawyers have been themselves drawn into those distinctly business activities which characterize the age, and devote their knowledge and skill solely to the service of particular interests. The lawyer-statesman is the only man who can meet the precise need of society today; and the call for him is all the more urgent because it comes when law and statesmanship seem to be nearer a complete divorce than at any time since a group of great lawyers framed our Constitution. Expert legal knowledge and instinct, exercised in statesmanship - this is the requirement.

It may be put more specifically. The dominant device of the time is the corporation - so distinctly a legal device that it is in great measure a legal fiction - and the marvelous extension of its function has submerged the great mass of individuals and raised up a few to a height where they are practically freed from individual responsibility. To rehabilitate the individual - by rescuing the submerged, by making responsible the overpowerful and over-privileged - is the task in hand; and it is clearly a task for the same kind of skill that has created the corporation and made its immunities so bewilderingly effective. More specifically still, the problem for the lawyer-statesman, the problem of the corporation, is to “abandon at the right points the fatuous, antiquated, and quite unnecessary fiction which treats it as a legal person”: There is this happy illustration:

One thinks of the old Confederation, which we had to abandon because it tried to govern states and could not command individuals.

And there is a wealth of amplification and enforcement of the central appeal which makes it, one would say, irresistible by men of any nobleness. It would be hard to find in the oratory of recent years - even since political insurgency set a new standard of candor with public questions - another taking account of our present state which goes straighter to the vital issues, or offers so practical a lead.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1910

Well Done, New Jersey It is a great day for New Jersey and a great day for the nation when a man like WOODROW WILSON comes forward to help reclaim and vivify our political life.

So says the Evening Post and so say they all - the World, the Times, the Sun, the Springfield Republican, the Indianapolis News, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Charleston News and Courier, the Boston Herald, the Philadelphia Record - all of the big independent public Journals of the country. No less vital and significant is the attitude of the press of New Jersey. The Democratic newspapers, led by the faithful old Trenton True American, are enthusiastic, of course. That was to have been expected. But New Jersey has strong independent papers. One of the ablest and highest-minded in the United States is the Newark Evening News, which says:

WOODROW WILSON is the nominee of the Democratic party for Governor. He is more than this, though. He is the candidate of thousands of Jerseymen, who have never been allied with the Democracy.

So far as the Governorship goes, the campaign this fall is not to be conducted on strict party lines. Ties of partisanship have been loosed in this year of grace and insurgency.

The crying demand throughout the country is not for party success, but for good government, for representatives unbossed by special interests, for officials who will work for the welfare of the masses instead of the classes. The demand is for a real Democracy, not a sham one; for statesmanship, not demagoguery; for an upright administration, not one that is only straight in partisanship.

The president of Princeton University meets these requirements of the times.

His ability as an administrator is acknowledged.

He has been accused of being no politician, but no one has disputed his statesmanlike qualifications.

A noted student of governmental affairs, he has always been found preaching Democracy.

A political economist, he has stood consistently for a square deal to both labor and capital.

A believer in personal integrity, he has insisted that personal wrong-doing, even when garbed in corporation robes, must he personally punished.

He holds that no position in the public service, in financial affairs, or in corporation control is so high as to relieve individuals from moral responsibility for their acts.

By his personality and by his beliefs, Dr. WILSON has thus become, as the result of a Democratic nomination, a candidate who is more than party-wide.

His nomination marks a new era in New Jersey politics. His selection has raised the political standard to a new high level.

Dr. WILSON has not been named primarily because of his availability as a vote-getter. He has been chosen for his fitness for the position of Chief Executive of a great state. And, of course, the recognition of that ability means votes.

New Jersey voters will honor both themselves and their state by electing Dr. WILSON.

Another is the Jersey Journal, which for thirty-odd years was the sturdy spokesman of the Republican party, but now speaks up frankly and pointedly:

The Democrats have nominated not only their strongest man, but one of the really big men of this country, for Governor. If the Republicans fail to nominate their strongest man, WOODROW WILSON’s majority will probably make the Maine landslide look like a stage performance in comparison.

The selection of Dr. WILSON is more than a party matter. He is not a politician or an office-seeker. He is a type of the very highest citizenship, an original thinker, a man of great executive force, eloquent, able, fearless, clean, and patriotic. The people understand that the promises he makes and those of the platform upon which he stands will be kept.

The November election in New Jersey promises to become historic.

A third is the Newark Sunday Call, which perceives “abundant cause for the general satisfaction which is expressed on every side, in all parties and factions, by men of principle in the nomination.” “Thousands,” it concludes, “who have heretofore supported the Republican party, albeit with some qualms, will turn to Dr. WILSON with confidence and with satisfaction. His career, his literary works, his speeches, and his personality have raised him to a position high in the ranks of statesmen, and his is no cold-blooded intellectuality. He is a cordial and sympathetic and essentially modest man, yet he has shown that he can fight, and he has led a wholesome life, inspired by high ideals and guided by settled principles. If he is elected, there will be found in the executive office at Trenton a gentleman, a man of honor, a Governor who will command respect for himself as well as for the office he fills."

True Leadership

The Sunday Call also notes the fact - it was a fact - that “the unrest and deep dissatisfaction of many Republicans with the Republican party in the state and with its failures of administration would have made the election of almost any respectable Democrat a possibility, and the temptation to use such a condition for the benefit of bosses must have been considerable. That the leaders took a broader view and determined to rehabilitate Democracy, as well as win an election, was gratifying in the extreme.” It was, indeed. When former Senator JAMES SMITH, Jr., in one of the most effective speeches ever made in a political convention, declared that practically none of the two hundred and forty delegates from Essex had ever seen Mr. WILSON, that personally he knew him very slightly, but that all were animated solely by a desire to raise the highest possible standard, he spoke the exact truth. When ROBERT DAVIS was asked to disregard the time-honored precedent of Hudson voting as a unit, he did not hesitate an instant to waive his strong personal inclinations in the common interest. There followed an absolutely “open” convention, in which each and every one of the fourteen hundred delegates spoke what he liked and voted as he pleased. This was the very antithesis of bossism; it was leadership of the highest order. Mr. WILSON paid due and fitting tribute to the breadth and unselfishness of these two leaders, in particular when, in accepting the nomination. he declared without reservation of any kind:

I did not seek this nomination. I have made no pledge and have given no promise. Still more, not only was no pledge asked, but, as far as I know, none was desired.

If elected, as I expect to be, I am left absolutely free 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.

Heartening words, these! It is, indeed, the beginning of a new era when such things can be truly said. No wonder, as the Evening Post remarks, “it leaves the Republicans absolutely stunned.”

Mr WILSON's majority will be about forty thousand. That's all.

Looking Ahead

We now expect to see WOODROW WILSON elected Governor of New Jersey in 1910 and nominated for President in 1912 upon a platform demanding tariff revision downward. HARPER'S WEEKLY of May 15, 1909.

At the expiration of sixteen months since the above appeared in this place we perceive no occasion to revise our calculations.

OCTOBER 22, 1910

The Campaign in New Jersey

It is a novel and remarkable canvass that WOODROW WILSON is making in New Jersey. Abandoning all partisan claptrap at the outset, he went straight to the heart of his subject, and not once, in a small multitude of speeches, has let the main thread slip through his fingers. The foundation of his argument is the simple fact that the Republican leaders owe so much to the special interests which have helped to keep them in power that they cannot honorably break the alliance. He makes no claim that Democratic leaders would have acted otherwise under like circumstances. He perceives little difference between the avowed principles of the two parties and none at all between the great masses of voters who comprise them. He rests his case solely upon the condition which has tied the party in power hand and foot and has left the other free at least to act in the interest of all the people. Whether it can or will so act, if given the opportunity, Mr. WILSON does not assume to say. But he does think the time has come when a test should be made, in view of the hopeless entanglement of the directors of the Republican party.

This is new doctrine, but none can gainsay its logic or soundness. That it is welcome is indicated by the size of the audiences which have gathered to listen and by the wide-spread attention accorded throughout the country. Probably never before have the utterances of a candidate for Governor constituted the theme of so many editorials. And there seems to be no cessation of interest either within or without the state.

It is not to be wondered at that the intrenched opposition continues in a state of stupor. How to cope with keen intelligence, perfect candor, and obvious sincerity seems to be beyond their ken. At present they are grasping vaguely at straws. The Republican candidate. Mr. VIVIAN M. LEWIS, an amiable and estimable young man, first essayed to uphold his stand-pat platform, but has now virtually repudiated it and disavows allegiance to the old régime, to which hitherto he has been unwaveringly faithful and to which he owes his nomination. Not so the Old Guard itself. True to its idols, confident in the power of its bureaucracy, and disdainful of aroused public sentiment, it marches sullenly along the same old road. “We stand pat on the candidate and the platform,” was the keynote sounded by former-Governor Games as a preliminary to sneering allusions to “the schoolmaster in politics.” “He is running for Governor,” added Senator KEAN, contemptuously, “with the idea of reforming the whole state, although he never considered it worth while to give the people the benefit of his advice until he became a candidate for Governor” - possibly because his time was somewhat occupied as president of Princeton University. “They say he is a scholarly man,” chipped in DAVID BAIRD, a candidate for United States Senator, “but he doesn’t know anything about running the state. When he got through there wouldn’t, be any state; there would be a revolution. Maybe he sees that there is a million and a quarter in the treasury and he wants to manage that. Now don’t you people worry about South Jersey on Election Day, for we propose to lick this man.” And so it goes.

Meanwhile, Mr. WILSON continues placidly on his way, analyzing and elucidating issue after issue with simple directness and telling force. That the Old Guard, backed by its beneficiaries with unlimited funds, will make a desperate effort at the finish to defeat him by fair means or foul may be taken for granted. But the people will render the verdict on November 8th as between this most exceptional man rcsponding to a call of civic duty and the group of men whose impelling motive is mere lust of the power which they have wielded so long to personal advantage and to the shame of the state. The result may be awaited with equanimity and the surest of confidence.

NOVEMBER 5, 1910

Next Tuesday

We are not a real prophet, but as a guesser we beat them all in 1904 and 1908. So we guess again:

That-ROOSEVELT will lose New York by 100,000.

That WOODROW WILSON will carry New Jersey by 40,000.

That BALDWIN will carry Connecticut by 5,000.

That HARMON will carry Ohio by 25,000.

That the results in Massachusetts and New Hampshire will be close, with the chances in favor of FOSS and BASS.

That BEVERIDGE will be beaten.

That the Democrats will have a majority of forty in the next House of Representatives.

That Democrats will succeed the Hon. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW and the Hon. JOHN KEAN in the United States Senate.

Amen! So be it!

NOVEMBER 12, 1910

The Oratory of the Campaign

Again, after the deluge of campaign speaking, the inquiry is pertinent, What has become of eloquence, of high art in oratory? We have all been reading speeches every day for a month or two. Some of us have even had the energy to go and listen to a few of them. Can any one of us declare that he has either heard or read a single one that could be called great? Is there so much as a single paragraph that sticks in one’s mind because it had the thrill of genuine eloquence - of high thought, suffused with strong feeling, nobly phrased? Our hands do not all go up at once, and if, after a while, anybody answers, the names most likely to be mentioned are probably the late Senator DOLLIVER’s and WOODROW WILSON’s. Dr. WILSON’s is certainly the one oratorical reputation that the campaign has most distinctly enhanced. But the papers, although they have reported him liberally, have seemed much more intent on bringing out whatever was striking or unusual in his views or merely epigrammatic in his language than on determining his claim to the really highest attainment in public speech. They have, as a rule, left out altogether the passages, particularly the perorations, in which he sought to move rather than merely convince his hearers. That seems to be the fashion of present-day reporting, and possibly it is in part responsible for the apparent dearth of eloquence in our oratory. But a more probable partial explanation is that the orators themselves are too much in the habit of speaking to the papers rather than to the audiences in front of them. For true oratory is like acting: the highest efiects of which it is capable are immediate, direct. They can be repeated by the aid of print only as the' reader is stirred to merge himself in an imaginary audience. If we read the papers less we should doubtless not only go oftener to hear our public men speak, but also have more exciting public speaking to listen to.

NOVEMBER 19, 1910

Incidentally

We made ten guesses, viz:

That DIX, HARMON, BALDWIN, FOSS, and BASS would win.

That BEVERIDGE, DEPEW, and KEAN would lose.

That the Democrats would elect a majority of forty in the next House of Representatives.

And (10) that WOODROW WILSON would carry New Jersey by 40,000.

Most people thought the last guess crazy. We have to confess. It wasn't a guess at all. It was what HOSEA BIglow called a prophecy. We knew, All the time.

The nine guesses came true, too.

A Clean Slate

The following excerpt from the Trenton State Gazette of November 4th fairly illustrates the type of argument that was used by the Republican press of New Jersey during the recent campaign:

The Democratic machine of city, county, and State is spending more mone than it has since 1894, in its effort to defeat the will of the people.

Where do they get it? Every dollar of it comes from the corrupt corporation interests of Wall Street. Those friends of Col. GEORGE HARVEY, JAMES SMITH, Jr., JAMES NUGENT, and R. V. LINDABURY, the self-appointed committee who tendered WOODROW WILSON the nomination "on the part of the thoughtful Democrats" of New Jersey.

The effect of such slander upon the minds of the people is accurately measured by the election returns. But now that it is all over, we wish to say flatly - and we know whereof we speak - that not one dollar was asked from or contributed to the Democratic campaign fund in New Jersey by any corporation interests corrupt or otherwise nor by any corporation in or out of Wall Street nor by any individual associated in the remotest degree with Wall Street or anything connected with Wall Street.

Results Talk

It appears, therefore, that WILSON in New Jersey has a plurality this year which is about one-eighth the total vote of his state two years ago. The pluralities of HARMON and FOSS are in each case about one-twelfth of the 1908 total, and that of DIX in York is one-twenty-fourth of that total. Judge BALDWIN needed a plurality of about 8,000 to give him relatively as big a victory as Mr. DIX won in New York. - Hartford Times.

Put in another way, the comparison (taking the combined Republican and Democratic votes as the total of two years ago) stands thus:

New York........ Total Vote: 1,537,000.... Net Dem. gain: 267,000.... Per cent: 17

Ohio........ Total Vote: 1,075,000.... Net Dem. gain: 134,000.... Per cent: 12 1/2

New Jersey........ Total Vote: 447,000.... Net Dem. gain: 132,000.... Per cent: 30

There can be no question as to who scored the great st triumph and now holds the lead among Democratic vote getters of the U.S.A.

NOVEMBER 19, 1910

Echoes

A PALM FROM NEW JERSEY

Colonel George Harvey is entitled to the palm. He predicted that New York, New Jersey, Ohio Massachusetts, and Connecticut would go Democratic and that Democrats would succeed Chauncey M Depew, John Kean, and Beveridge in the United States Senate. Colonel Harvey was mistaken as to high majorities in only one instance. He predicted that New York would give Dix 100,000. In the other States his estimates were below the mark. -Jersey Journal.

A CUP FROM NEW YORK

To the Editor of of The New York Times:

In the light of what has just happened, a consideration of "Col. Harvey's Guess," recently reprinted you from HARPER'S WEEKLY should be interesting. The Colonel said Roosevelt would lose New York 100,000. He lost by about 110,000. That Wilson would carry New Jersey by 40,000; he did it by 44,000. That Baldwin would carry Connecticut by 5,000; be squeezed through with something like 3,600. That Harmon would carry Ohio by 25,000; he did by over twice that. That the results in Massachusetts and New Hampshire would be close, with the chances in favor of Foss and Bass. Both got there, apparently, the former with a liberal margin. That Beveridge would be beaten; he was, it seems. That the Democrats would have a majority of 40 in the next House; they show 49.

And, consequently, the Colonel’s prediction that Democrats will succeed the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew and the Hon. John Kean in the United States Senate appears a pretty safe one.

The Colonel, as he says, may not be a “real prophet,” but as a guesser he is entitled to the cup on the third win.

New York, November 9, 1910. J. W. E.

- New York Times.

FROM SUSPICION FREED

HARPER'S WEEKLY insists on having WOODROW WILSON for the Democratic candidate for the Presidency.

This tends to remove the suspicion that HARPER'S WEEKLY is still voting for Andrew Jackson. -Manchester Union.

TURN ABOUT, ETC.

Just think of it. Some one is proposing to make Mr. Roosevelt president of the University of Michigan. The only excuse for this proposition is that HARPER’S WEEKLY keeps talking of the president of Princeton as the Democratic nominee for President. -Birmingham Ledger.

A CONVERTED STATE

Colonel George Harvey should have gone into the ministry. He is a sure-enough wonder at making converts. -Trenton Times.

END OF THE CONCERT

With President Woodrow Wilson the Democratic nominee for Governor of New Jersey, life on the editorial page of Colonel Harvey’s HARPER'S WEEKLY should, indeed, be “one grand, sweet song” again. -Detroit Journal.

PREDICTIONS

The editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY has two ways of reminding them that he told them so. One is the usual way; the other is novel. It's simply to reproduce in his paper, when the time comes, the predictions made by him in the pages of the other publication he edits - The North American Review. One of the times came when the New Jersey Democrats nominated Dr. Woodrow Wilson for Governor; the prediction reproduced from the August number of the Review was that, “as ever hitherto in a crisis of the Republic, a man will emerge from comparative political obscurity, capable of holding high the torch of personal liberty, that all the people may see the clear light and revert gladly to the pristine standard of individual and industrial progress which, despite temporary retrogression is the glory of the nation.” Wasn’t Dr. Wilson in comparative political obscurity, and hasn't he emerged for fair, and isn’t he the dandy torch-holder? The heart of Editor Harvey sings with joy. With Editor McKelway, of the Borough of Brooklyn, he acclaims Dr. Wilson as "the foremost American Democrat.” Do you hear that, Mr. Bryan? Are you listening, Governor Harmon? -Hartford Courant.

REPUBLICAN JUDGMENT

Colonel George Harvey, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY and a militant Democrate of the old-time school, has wielded his powerful and brilliant pen to no small effect in making Dr. Wilson’s candidacy possible. Colonel Harvey believes that a party which is presented in Ohio by a Harmon, and in New York by a Gaynor, is worthy of a Wilson in New Jersey. Even Republicans must admit that the meeting of such worthy foemen in the field is a tonic which must ultimately be wholesome to the best principles of their own cause. A weak and decayed Democracy clinging to ancient and abandoned issues is a menace. An awakened Deniocracy, standing as Dr. Wilson does on a platform of equalization in taxation, regulation of corporations, and economy in administration, is an inspiration. -Grand Rapids Press.

STILL CIVILIZING

HARPER'S WEEKLY under George Harvey’s management is still a “journal of civilization.” It was largely instrumental in giving the Jersey Democracy a leader to lift it to higher political levels. -Trenton Advertiser.

LOOKING AHEAD

Well, if Colonel Harvey isn't the prophet himself, he must be one of the Colonel's contributing editors. When we are looking for a political “hunch” hereafter, we shall go straight to Franklin Square. -Trenton True American.

INVITED TO DINNER

For the third time Colonel George Harvey has hit the nail on the head, hit it hard and right in the middle. HARPER'S WEEKLY of the 5th of November, printed quite a week before the day of election, contains the complete results.

Good! We declare you in with that dinner which Joseph Pulitzer is going to give another prophet the first Monday in December, 1911. And the star-spangled ban-! -Louisville Courier-Journal.

A CITY OF SMALL HALLS

All the papers are talking about George Harvey’s guess about the result of the elections in the pivotal states this year and how nearly he hit it. Says the Waterbury American; “Colonel Harvey is a wonder - this year.” Colonel Harvey is a wonder every year, and the older he gets and the more guesses he makes the more wonderful he seems. It is now the intention of the Equal Suffrage people of Richmond to have him speak here before the season is over about the rights of women, and the ball will not be big enough to hold the people who will want to hear him. -Richmond Times-Dispatch.

OH, VERY WELL!

George Harvey didn’t do it all, but he did some, and some helps a lot. -Charleston News and Courier.

CHEEKY CHARLESTON

George Harvey predicted the result absolutely, following us in that. -Charleston News and Courier.

PREDESTINATION

The most attractive of the political creations of yesterday is obviously Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey. Long known as a capable thinker concerning politics and government, he proved himself on the stump a candidate, and yesterday he demonstrated himself to be a vote-getter of great power.

Except George B. McClellan, whose residence in the state was nominal, Jersey has never had a Presidential candidate. There is fair prospect that the reproach, if it be such, is not unlikely to be removed. All over the country Democratic thought will turn to-day to Dr. Wilson as the appointed one for 1912. His probable rival, Governor Harmon, of Ohio, was a member of Cleveland’s cabinet and conspicuously bolted Bryan, and thus furnished an argument against his availability. In his cooler academic retreats Dr. Wilson has been identified with neither Democratic faction.

Dr. Wilson, besides being a Jerseyite, is a Southerner born - if nominated, will be the first Presidential candidate of Southern birth since Lincoln. When it comes to rounding up delegates to the national Deniocratic convention, it will not hurt him south of Mason and Dixon’s line that he is able to sing “Dixie.” A progressive Democrat who is able to escape the anger of the conservative Democrats, and a Southern man who has lifted himself out of sectional strife. Dr. Wilson is plainly being chosen by destiny. -New York Globe.

DEMOCRACY’S GREATEST ACT

The greatest act of the Democratic party in the eletions of this year was the nomination for Governor of New Jersey of Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University.

The national significance of Woodrow Wilson’s established reputation as a vote-getter can hardly be overestimated. He looms up at once as a prominent candidate for the Presidential nomination, a possible figure on which the conservative interests of the East, the radicals of the West, and thc unvarying Democrats of the South may easily unite in the mutual conviction that fairncss and justice from him could be depended on. He is a native of the Sunny South, born in Staunton, Virginia. the state of Washington and Jefferson and Lee, nursed in the bosom of the Mother of Presidents; he learned law in the University of Virginia; he practised law for two years in Atlanta, Georgia, before he became a college professor. He knows the feelings of the South as few men prominent in the North know them. This is a matter of importunce in a President's administration. It is a matter of even greater importance in a national convention where the South as a safe Democratic section must hold the balance of power.

It is entirely possible that New Jersey’s election of a Governor has given to the national Democracy a suggestion of the open door to triumph in 1912. That is a gratifying reflection to Democrats in every state in the Union. -Brooklyn “Eagle.”

A SAMPLE FROM THE SOUTH

The fact seems to be that, since the repudiation by the Democratic party of Grover Cleveland, Wilson is the one man available for the Democratic nomination who can command the respect and confidence of the safe and sane element without which Bryan has three times essayed to be President and three times met contemptuous rejection. Wilson secms to be thoroughly sound on the basic principles of Democracy and tainted with none of the populistic vagaries Bryan and his crowd fastened upon the Democratic machine, to the disgust and driving away of every state and section that was Democratic except the South, where there is no choice. He seems to be imbued with a noble idea of liberty and individual independence, absolutely honest and reliable, as safe from the wildisms and fanatical doctrines of Roosevelt and Bryan, on the one hand, as from the selfishness and partisanship and treachery and sycophancy of Taft on the other hand.

Well, it suits us.

We believe all the signs of the times point to the nomination of Wilson by the Democrats in 1912 and his triumphant election, and we believe it will be a complete turning-point in American history, the casting out of all the small breed of swindlers, opportunists, demagogues, and riders of the wave of specious popular feeling of the hour, and a return to the simplicity of first principles. -Greenville (South Carolina) “News.”

FIRST IN THE LINE

It is obvious that his impressive victory, due in great part to his candid canvass, to the sympathy he has shown with the current of opinion, and to the grasp and command he has also shown of the essential elements of the national situation, must put him in the front rank of the new leaders and in the line of promotion to the highest national honors. -New York “Times.”

WATCH AND WAIT

The victory which Woodrow Wilson has won in New Jersey is not wholly one of personal conquest of the men who have voted for him. It consists more in the choice by the people of one of the oldest of the commonwealths, as their leader in dealing with the large issues of the hour, of a man whose life has been dedicated to a profound study of political institutions, whose books, orations, and speeches have shown him competent to deal in a large-minded and dispassionate way with the task of governmental reconstruction which lies ahead. His elcction brings him before the people of the nation as a man whose convictions and temper fit him peculiarly for shaping new laws; and if he succeeds as well while Governor as he has as a plcader for the opportunity to serve in that capacity he will become a formidable candidate for the nomination to the Presidency in 1912. And this is the more inevitable in view of his peculiar appeal to the South, where he was born and in part educated. Its purposes he would appreciate as would no other Northern man. Should his record as Governor lead to discussion of his name as a Presidential candidate, he would be especially strong as nominee because of the powerful appeal he could make on the platform. How practical and efficient Governor Wilson will prove to be under the stress of actual conditions at Trenton remains to be seen. Those who have known him longest and who have studied his method of approach to the voters during his remarkable recent tour of the state are confident that he will not be disappointing. The practical politicians of both parties have had notice served on them that nothing will be bid, but that everything will be done on the assumption that once the people know the facts they will force right action. Watch Wilson; that’s all. -Boston “Herald.”

IN THE MINDS OF DEMOCRATS

Mr. Woodrow Wilson is yet to be tried. His campaign in New Jersey is the subject of wide comment. The present Governor, a Republican, was elected by a majority of about 8,000. Mr. Wilson overthrew that majority and won his election by a majority that is between 40,000 and 50,000. If he makes good as Governor, higher political honors await him.

Governor Harmon and Governor-elect Wilson are already being spoken of for the Democratic nomination for President. Governor Harmon has the advantage because he carried his state by a larger majority than Mr. Wilson did, and also because he has a record as an administrator that invites confidence. But both are the sort of men to whom Mr. Wilson called attention in his Princeton address. They are the sort of men the people are looking for. They are certain to put the public interests before their own political advancement. Neither may be nominated in 1912 for President, but at this time both are in the minds of the Democratic masses for the nomination to that high office. -Savannah “News.”

JOSEPHUS DANIEL’S JUDGMENT

The country is turning away from the charlatans like Roosevelt, no matter how brilliant; the Smooth-it-aways like Taft, no matter how personally amiable; the barterers in legislation like Aldrich, no matter how able. They are looking for men to lead who will serve the true welfare of all the people, owe no obligations to special interests, and whose ability and character fit them for leadership. Machine politicians and noisy demagogues have palled on the public. They wish sincere and capable men who will make war on monopoly while conserving all business, large and small.

New Jersey has sounded all the depths of machine politics, subservience to trusts. obedience to railroad dictation, the making merchandise of office and of legislation. Its Senators are small editions of Aldrich and Cannon. One is the quick and zealous tool of all trusts, the other has used his high office to try to secure favorable legislation for his own business. There has not been a Congressman of the first order of ability from New Jersey in twenty-five years. The men who have led both parties have been trusted friends of the trusts, and the people have had no representatives.

This was the set year for New Jersey to repudiate bossism and trust favoritism. The Democrats turned to Princeton and selected Woodrow Wilson as their candidate. He is the foremost American college president, and his books on government are authorities in this country and abroad. He is a man of letters who has “mixed with men and prospered.” He knows books, but he knows men also, and the vital problems that must be solved for men of every class and condition. He is a speaker of uncommon ability and was as popular with the “boys” in the shops as the scholars in the universities. Business men saw he was no dreamer, but a practical man of affairs. He made few promises, but impressed men of all parties that he would regard public office as a public trust. And that, together with the trend against Republicanism, assured his election.

The people of North Carolina take dcep interest in Mr. Wilson and his career. When his father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Wilmington Mr. Wilson was for a time a resident of this state. His nephew is Professor of Latin in the University of North Carolina, and last year he charmed the state by his oration on Lee at the University of North Carolina. The whole legislature went to Chapel Hill to hear him, and never did an orator. so completely captivate an audience. When Mr. Wilson was nominated for Governor of New Jersey all who heard him at Chapel Hill felt like congratulating the voters of that state upon the treat in store for them. His campaign was a revelation to those who expected learned and dry scholastic essays. His success is a matter for national congratulation. -Raleigh “News and Observer.”

A SOLITARY “IF”

New Jersey needs at this juncture a strong progressive leader. It is the home of many great corporations which wield a power in and far beyond that commonwealth. If Woodrow Wilson can live up to his reputation as a prophet of better things and establish himself as an efficient champion of the people, he will be in line for higher honors if his party should have the good fortune to regain supremacy in national affairs. -Springfield “Union.”

TO BE RECKONED WITH

Probably the most remarkable victory won Tuesday is that of Woodrow Wilson, who was elected Governor of New Jersey by the surprising plurality of 46,000. It was at first thought that the plurality would not be more than 25,000 at the outside. But it has been steadily growing until it has reached 46,000. This is almost unprecedented. Only three times, and then on the vote for President and in extraordinary years, has this plurality been exceeded. Except in those years it has hardly been approached. Mr. Wilson’s remarkable victory carries with it the control of the legislature, and that means the retirement of Senator Kean, who will give place to a Democrat. Of course every one is now talking of this new personality. son has shown, not simply that he is a thoroughly well-informed man on public questions, but that he is a most effective campaigner and a, man of the people in the best sense. In his speeches he was able to discuss the most profound subjects in such a way as to bring them home to the average man who, perhaps, had never thought much about them before.

Mr. Wilson made the most favorable impression on all who heard him. He has made a favorable impression on the country at large. He is, as all know, a man of the highest character. Of his intellectual power there can be no doubt. He is a student and a scholar deeply read in the nation's history. In him we have a revival of the old type which was once so popular in America. There has been much fun poked at the scholar in politics, and it has not always been misdirected. But here is a man who is a scholar and who has shown a wisdom in politics that many a boss might envy. What thc future may hold for Woodrow Wilson is, of course, a mere matter of speculation. He has to go through another test - namely, that of administering public office. In that he may fail; but the probability is that those qualities which have brought him success thus far - knowledge, wisdom, poise. and ability to act with other men - will serve him well in his new position. There is no more interesting personality now before the people than Woodrow Wilson. A man who can carry the doubtful state of New Jersey by a plurality of 46,000 is to be reckoned with. -Indianapolis “News.”

NOVEMBER 26, 1910

MICHIGAN

By the New Democrats, of which Colonel Editor George Harvey is a luminary, Dr. Woodrow Wilson was induced to resign as president of Princeton University and run for Governor of New Jersey to test his own political popularity and the strength of the Democratic principles and doctrines which he typifies. Had he been defeated, it would, of course, have demonstrated that this new school of Democracy is not justified in its Presidential ambitions and hopes. His election, on the other hand, buries yet deeper the era of Bryanism and its attendant heresies.

The kind of campaign which Dr. Woodrow Wilson has conducted in New Jersey also throws a new light upon the man. There was nothing in it of uncertainty and academic aloofness. He met all attacks upon him firmly, vigorously, and with just the proper amount of dignity. He showed remarkable political sagacity and resourcefulness. It is no longer safe or logical to deride the ambitions of the academic statesman, the New Sage of Princeton. Dr. Woodrow Wilson is a Democratic figure to be reckoned with. -Detroit “Journal.”

A SERIOUS TEST

By the way, the Colonel - that is, Colonel Harvey - proved a good guesser on the election. The News carefully preserved his predictions in HARPER’S WEEKLY of the 5th, feeling sure that they would as a whole go so far wrong that even as humble a publication as this paper would be warranted in advising the Colonel - that is, Colonel Harvey, again - to come back to Vermont and settle down on an abandoned farm, if one could be found. The aforesaid predictions, however, averaged wonderfully correct for a fact, and the News' admiration for Colonel Harvey as a guesser has risen to that profound height that it actually believes he could estimate the exact number of beans in a jar at a church fair. -Northfield, Vermont, “News.”

AN AEROPLANE IN SIGHT

Hats off to George Harvey, editor of HARPER’S WEEKLY, as a prophet. With the remark that it beat'em all at guessing in 1904 and 1908, the paper a few days ago made the guesses which make his battiiig average 1,000, which deserves at least an auto, if not an aeroplane. -Sioux City "Tribune."

A BLUE RIBBON

Brother George Harvey of HARPER’S WEEKLY will get the blue ribbon as a political prophet. - Waco "Times-Herald."

BEHOLD THE RESULT

Colonel Harvey, who supplied the silver platter upon which the gubernatorial nomination was offered to Woodrow Wilson, predicts in HARPER’S WEEKLY that his political protege will come out of the contest to-morrow with a plurality of 40,000.

Predictions are easily made and figures are easily written. It gives a prognosticator no more trouble to say that a candidate’s plurality, or majority, will be 100,000 than to say that it will be 10,000.

A plurality of 40,000 for Woodrow Wilson means a “landslide,” and the person who calmly views the situation, eliminating from his mind every iota of hysteria, must admit that there is nothing in the air, on the earth, or in the waters under the earth to indicate a “landslide.” -Trenton “State Gazette” of November 7th.

DECEMBER 17, 1910

A MATTER OF HISTORY

Henry Watterson has been saying things about George Harvey which we allow no man - doesn't matter how much we love him and how loyally we follow him - to say in our presence without resentment. In reviewing the present situation of the Democratic party, as brought about by the recent elections, Harvey touched upon a somewhat similar state of affairs in 1892, and observed that the Democratic party failed then, “partly because of the black fact of treachery in its own ranks when the time of its testing came. Ignoble men, holding its high places, betrayed their leader and their cause.” That is the truth, written on every page of the political history of this country during the last eighteen or twenty years.

Mr. Watterson agrees with Harvey in effect, for he says that “the primary cause of the failure was that the party and the administration did not live up to the platform on the faith of which they had come into power.” That is partly true, but only partly true. The party was to blame. The Administration was not to blame. Mr. Cleveland did not make the Wilson bill, “laid in a morass and built on lines of water," as the great Kentuckian describes it. He did not even approve it; he really ought to have vetoed it; but it is worse than nonsense to say that Mr. Cleveland was in any sense responsible for it or its failure to meet the platform. Mr. Cleveland is out of the way now. He has not been in politics for fourteen years. Instead of trying to unload on him the sins and stupidities of the party be twice led to victory, Mr. Watterson ought to "get together" with George Harvey and the rest of the boys and forget so much of the past as he does not remember. -John C. Hemphill, in Richmond "Times-Dispatch."

Major Hemphill is right and Marse Henry is wrong, as Major Hemphill usually is. -EDITOR.

NOMINATED, NOMINATED

Colonel Harvey is already electing Woodrow Wilson President in 1912, and he is getting to be so dangerously near a correct political prophet that it almost seems like witchery. -Baltimore “Sun.”

TAKING NOTICE

Colonel Harvey, who had more to do with persuading Woodrow Wilson to become a candidate for Governor than any other man, and more to do with having him nominated than any other man, now makes the prophecy which, in view of the Colonel's surprisingly accurate forecasts heretofore, is worth attention:

“We fully anticipate the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States by the Democratic national convention of 1912, as against William H. Taft, Republican candidate.” -Syracuse "Post-Standard."

HEAVY HITTING

After a careful perusal of the current HARPER’S WEEKLY observations on the general result of the election, we do not hesitate to award the I-told-you so pennant to Colonel George Harvey. -Columbus “Journal.”

A SURE THING

Editor George Harvey, of HARPER’S WEEKLY, is inclined to admit that Governor-elect Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, is likely to be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States against President Taft, who will be nominated by the Republicans. Colonel Harvey has already shown himself to be a good guesser. -Burlington “ Free Press.”

APPLAUSE FROM THE GALLERY

On election eve we reproduced Colonel George Harvey's forecast of the election from HARPER’S WEEKLY, and the editor hit the nail so squarely on the head as to excite admiration and applause from many of his brethren of the press. We again print the forecast as food for pleasing comparison with the actual results. -Macon News.

THE SAME

Colonel Harvey of Harper's publications had much to do with the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for Governor of New Jersey, and later he made a remarkably accurate prophecy of election results in various states. Therefore Colonel Harvey's latest political forecast is of special interest. It is as follows:

“We fully anticipate the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States by the Democratic National Convention of 1912, as against William H. Taft, Republican candidate.” -Rome Sentinel.

CORRECT

Editor Harvey, of HARPER’S WEEKLY, has his guessing cap on again. This time he guesses - and with full belief in the accuracy of his guess - that the Democratic National Convention of 1912 will nominate Dr. Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, for the Presidency, and that the Doctor's Republican opponent will be William H Taft, of Ohio. -Hartford Courant.

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS REALIZED

Quite as was expected, HARPER'S WEEKLY nominates Woodrow Wilson for President next time. HARPER'S WEEKLY was the original Wilson man. -Holyoke Transcript.

IN DUE TIME - NOT YET

The keen eye of HARPER’S WEEKLY has been focused on Woodrow Wilson now for a number of years, and the paper has been forecasting his fortune with the accuracy of a prophet. It reviews its own prophecy as to that eminent educator, economic scientist, and now statesman in its current issue, and adds:

“We now fully anticipate the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States by the Democratic National Convention of 1912, as against William H. Taft, Republican candidate.”

Colonel Harvey promises to continue the prophecy. While the time for the fulfilling of the last has not yet arrived, it is entirely possible that it will be, indeed, highly probable, especially when viewed in conjunction with the past performances of the prophet.

But the most important of all prophesies is yet to come. Will Woodrow Wilson be elected President of the United States? Of course, it will be finally made; maybe before the next National Democratic Convention, or maybe after. Whenever, it will be interesting. -Norfolk Landmark.

PARTNERSHIP

HARPER’S WEEKLY joins the Birmingham News in advocating the nomination of Woodrow Wilson President in 1912. -Birmingham News.

DECEMBER 24 1910

A BIG PLACE RESERVEI FOR TEXAS

Much to our surprise and chagrin, Colonel George Harvey is giving trouble again. Because of his friskiness and penchant for jumping the fence and getting into the Republican pasture at the most inopportune time, we have kept him hitched of late years because we could not trust him to stand while we went into the store to get the mail and a box of sardines. So docile did he become as a result of this restraint that we decided after the dawn of the Democratic year of jubilee the other day to ride him without saddle or bridle and to give him the freedom of the pasture in which to kick up his heels and snort.

We fear we shall have to hitch him to the post again and resume our disciplinary measures. Here before we have had time to consume a Thanksgiving turkey and lay before the Lord of Hosts the expressions of gratitude which become the occasion and the season - here is Colonel Harvey nominating a candidate for President for us.

“We now fully anticipate,” he says, “the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States by the Democratic national convention of 1912, as against William H. Taft, Republican candidate.”

Far be it from us to impeach the availability of Dr. Wilson. For him we entertain only feelings of admiration, respect, and confidence. He is Presidential timber of which to be roud. In character, statesmanship, scholarship, and emocracy he is a credit to the party, to his native Virginia, to is adopted New Jersey, and an honor to an appreciative republic. His elevation to the Presidency would be as the birth of a new day to a trust-ridden and demagogue-infested country. There is not one objection to him that we can discern at this time.

But, Colonel Harvey, we haven't reached the nominating stage yet, and you must remember that a lot of the boys are to be consulted before we fling our banners to the breeze. There are other Democratic sons who are entitled to be considered - sons of equal worth and availability - and we must carefully weigh the merits of each after we have prepared for the conflict. We are not ready at this moment, and the record upon which we are toogo to the country is yet to be made. Dr. Wilson, Governor Harmon, and the other leaders are to perform some conspicuous service in the making of that record. We will be better able to settle the question of availability after all this has been attended to.

It will be a year before the party can even begin to see the light with respect to the ticket of 1912. We must nominate the most available man, availability being the chief consideration, since it is universally admitted that Wilson, Harmon, and others are in all respects up to the mark in character, capacity, and Democracy. And then when the time comes to nominate, we must let the people have a say. Conceding Colonel Harvey’s prescience with respect to matters political and his zeal for the cause, when the cause meets his approval, we cannot leave the matter in his hands altogether.

So if he persists in ringing the dinner-bell before the fire has been built in the kitchen, we shall have to call him down. We have a keen appetite for the blessings to come of Democratic government, but let all things be done in order. At present we are concerned as to what a new Congress is going to do to make a Democratic victory possible. -Houston “Post.”

Our patience with Brother George Bailey is limitless. Strive as he may to swerve it, his heart holds as true to the right as the needle to the pole. It is only a question of time when his slow coach will take its allotted place in the procession, well up in front, close behind the band. -EDITOR.

ONLY NOMINATED AS YET

Colonel Harvey has already nominated and elected Woodrow Wilson President in 1912. Are the orange and black to be nailed up under the red, white, and blue? -Houston “Chronicle.”

VICTORY IN SIGHT

The Democratic victory was widespread and sweeping. It shows what can be done with a party united and aggressive and true to its own principles. The state of North Carolina, which seemed to have been wobbling two years ago, has reversed itself entirely and has reclaimed the three Republican districts, sending a solid Democratic delegation to Congress. Instead of being weak and apologetic, the Democratic party has jerked itself together, and, following the advice of Colonel George Harvey, has indulged in some “pizen-mad, pig-headed fighting.” It has not only reclaimed everything that it had lost, but it has put itself in line for 1912, and has shown itself not only worthy of confidence, but also entitled to a Presidential victory, which is apt to come. -Savannah “News.”

THE FIGURE ON THE HORIZON

HARPER’S WEEKLY must be given the credit for the discovery of Woodrow Wilson as a national and economic political factor. As far back as 1906 Editor Harvey picked out the president of Princeton as a fit subject for Presidential lightning, and he has steadily and consistently stuck to it ever since. In the mean time Dr. Wilson has been growing on the country, until he not only looms up as Presidential size, but he is well to the front amid the ruck of the Democratic leaders for the nomination.

It must be admitted that there is no bigger or clearer figure on the Presidential horizon than Dr. Wilson, and in all probability he will be a strong contestant for the chief prize in the national Democratic convention of 1912. -Macon “News.”

NONE WHATEVER

George Harvey insists that he knew all the time that Woodrow Wilson would get there. Well, now that he’s got there, is there any reason to assume that he will stop? -Charleston “News and Courier.”

FROM AWAY BACK

Many men ride themselves upon being political prophets, but there is only one in America in the year 1910 who has made good to the claim. Early in the year, when most people believed the Republicans would continue to win victories, Colonel George Harvey, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, looked for big Democratic victories, and he said so in his paper. Here is the record of this editor who is a prophet “as is a prophet” sure enough. -Raleigh “News and Observer."

WELL, WELL, WELL

Colonel Harvey’s newspaper campaign, though unquestionably costly, was well arranged and carried out. There is no discounting the fact that the funds of “the interests” back of Professor Wilson's candidacy were well disbursed among the Philadelphia and New York newspapers, all of which surrendered more space to the New Jersey contest than they did to those within their own borders, with, perhaps, a single exception, that of Tener’s assailant. It cannot be said “all honor,” but it can be said all credit to the sagacity of the expert politicians who planned and worked out to a successful issue the scheme to elect the Democratic ticket in New Jersey. They were master hands and heads that did the work. -Camden “Courier.”

JANUARY 28, 1911

The South Asks No Favors

From the Nashville “Banner”

The current number of the North American Review has an engaging editorial article with the interrogatory heading, "Will the Democratic Party Commit Suicide?” As the Democratic party still has a potential existence it has never been guilty of self-destruction, but it has at various times evinced a strange fatuity for blunders of a suicidal tendency. It has a monumental record of forfeited opportunity and a demonstrated capacity for what in culinary parlance is known as “throwing the fat in the fire.” This lack of perspicacity has given it the jackass as its emblem. It was with reference to the reputation established by the party’s conduct in the past rather than any immediate tireat of renewed blundering that induced the question asked by the North American Review, but it is also warranted by existing conditions.

In the course of the article the further question is asked, “Who, then, can prevent the election of a Democrat as President?" And this is followed by the declaration, “The answer is swift and certain. Only the Democrats themselves.” The Review looks with apprehension to a solitary figure in the West that “has held the partisan millions in the hollow of his hands for nearly two decades and even now threatens to palsy the prospects of success.” But with the visible waning of the Bryan influence, “out of the ruck have shot up strong and vivid personalities. Men have arisen, real men, men of force, of conviction, of understanding, of ideals - the rugged and successful Harmon; the picturesque, though uncertain, Gaynor; the firm but cautious Dix; the virtuously homely Marshall; the erudite Baldwin; the winning Plaisted; the flamboyant Foss; and finally, like a meteor in the sky, the bold and sentient Wilson. Truly a goodly few, but yet a few.”

With this array of leader - new, strong, and successful, with the control of the House of Representatives that has always presaged success in a Presidential contest, and with a divided Republican party in opposition, the prospects of the Democracy seem indeed good. These facts considered, the North American Review asks what of the issues, and declares that of these, “paramount stands the tariff.” This issue the Review says “must be met squarely and courageously by the Sixty-second Congress.”

When the situation is carefully surveyed this conclusion is undoubtedly correct. There are other issues, but the tariff leads. It was on the tariff that the House was won. But in the tariff lies a Democratic danger. The tariff, when it comes to specific revision, has always been prolific of division, and the discussion of the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill revealed lack of Democratic unity. Senator Bailey's stand against free raw materials aroused the criticism of Mr. Bryan, who had put a plank to the contrary in the Denver platform. But the North American Review thinks the problem should not be difficult. “The Democratic policy,” it declares “is traditional. It was established eighty years ago and has varied since only in degree and in unimportant phrasing. It never comprehended free trade. It stands now, as then, for a tariff primarily for revenue and incidentally for protection.”

This is a correct statement of the party's historical position. The North American Review makes elaborate criticism from prominent Democrats of the past in support of its position. “Such,” it says, “is the Democratic creed, enunciated by Jackson, amplified by Polk, and reiterated by Tilden and Cleveland,” and adds, “it is the policy, not merely of the party, but of the whole people. Wherever it has been adhered to in practice, the party has been successful and the country has prospered. Whenever it has been disregarded, the party has gone down to defeat and favored interests have come into complete control of the government.”

The trouble with Republican tariffs has been not so much that they offered protection to home industries, as that they created these “favored interests,” of which the editorial article in the North American Review speaks. They have been partial tariffs, seetionally and otherwise. They have fostered and pampered the trusts, instead of safeguarding the real “infant industries" and the public interests in general.

The country would prosper under a new tariff framed on the traditional Democratic policy, and the country is ready to trust the party with power if it will unite in an earnest effort at sensible and impartial revision. Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, and the author of a tariff that served the country for a number of years, one under which the Democratic party had a longcontinued supremacy, declared among other things: “That the duty should be so imposed as to operate as equally as possible throughout the Union, discriminating neither for nor against any class or section.”

The new industries of the South will ask no protection other than that a properly regulated revenue tariff would afford. There should be no “favored interests,” and no sectional discrimination. Andrew Jackson said in his second inaugural: “While the chief object of duties should be revenues, they should be so adjusted as to encourage manufactures. In this adjustment, however, it is the duty of the government to be guided by the general good.” This is the true doctrine of tariff revision in a nutshell. It is from the fountain source of Democracy, and is the historic position of the party.

If it be adhered to by the majority in the House of Representatives in the coming Congress and made the chief declaration of the party platform in 1912, the Democracy, with a suitable Presidential candidate, should win. All the chances are now in its favor, if fate will save it from fatuous blundering and the baneful interference of false leaders.

FEBRUARY 4, 1911

Knight Errant of the New Democracy

The somewhat acrimonious controversy over the Senatorship in New Jersey ended in a decisive victory for Governor WOODROW WILSON over ex-Senator JAMES SMITH, Jr. It resolved into a struggle between the New Order and the Old, and the result was inevitable. Governor WILSON was handicapped from the beginning by the inferior quality of the “primary” candidate whom he felt in honor bound to support, and necessarily he had to face charges of personal ingratitude because of the fact that his own nomination was attributable largely to Mr. SMITH’s endeavors. But he could not escape the conviction that even a half-baked primary law must be upheld and, highly as he esteemed Senator SMITH personally, he did not see how he could honorably ignore the fact that the former Senator was regarded by the people, rightly or wrongly, as the personification of bossism and as an ally of the corporations. So he went straight to the voters themselves and aroused public opinion to such a degree that the members of the legislature found it irresistible.

We doubt if a more daring act was ever performed in American politics. Governor WILSON not only jeopardized the success of his administration, but also hazarded his political fortunes. He could not but know that, in taking the stand he did against Mr. SMITH, he was inviting the antagonism not of that established leader alone, but of all like him throughout the country. Most men would have hesitated long before taking a step which might easily have proven fatal, and we are not sure that the public would not have held such conduct pardonable, under the circumstances. But the Governor did not fancy the inevitable suspicion that he had either been a party to fooling the people or had been fooled himself. So he took the clear road up the hill, turned neither to right nor left, never flinched, kept his good humor - and won in a walk.

What effect the controversy will have upon the reform legislation to which he is pledged cannot be foretold, but it is a fair guess that the dominance which Governor WILSON has already attained over the legislature will be held securely. Moreover, Senator SMITH is not only a strong partisan, but a good sportsman, and we have no anticipation whatever that he will try to subvert the new administration in any way.

So far as the country is concerned, Governor WILSON’s action has won universal commendation, and his daring has captured the imaginations of the people more completely than anybody, except possibly CLAY, BLAINE, and ROOSEVELT, has succeeded in doing before. Already, in contrast with DIX and HARMON, he is hailed as the Knight Errant of the New Democracy, and as such will be nominated for President in opposition to WILLIAM H. TAFT.

FEBRUARY 11, 1911

Champ Clark

BALTIMORE, MD., January 1, 1911.

To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly

Sir, - I have just read Mr. Ryerson W. Jennings’s communication advocating the nomination of Champ Clark (soon to be Speaker) by the Democratic national convention. Which suggests some thoughts:

The other day the Washington Times contained an editorial which, in a mass of other things, correct and incorrect, made these statements that are absolutely true, and we cannot get away from the truth of them:

“It is getting plainer every week that the people who are taking charge of the Harmon movement are much the same people who engineered the Alton B. Parker movement in 1904, and proved themselves incapable of holding within a million as many votes as the Bryan force could hold.

“The Democrats need a candidate who, while not being Mr. Bryan, shall be able to command the sincere support of Mr. Bryan. . . . It is plain as a pikestaff that no Democrat is going to be elected in 1912 who has Mr. Bryan distinctly opposed to him.

"If the Democratic party has not one man of Presidential size and availability, who can command the support of Mr. Bryan without driving away all the moderates in the party, then its chance of winning is mighty poor.”

Champ Clark has never been one of Mr. Bryan’s close counselors - Bryan’s Missouri fidus Achates has always been Senator William Joel Stone, he of the affidavit face, able politician, and great tactician. Yet Mr. Bryan would gladly support Mr. Clark for President, and I know what I am talking about. And it makes not a bit of difference how much we love or hate Mr. Bryan - and nearly all men seem to do one or the other - he controls at least a million votes. At least one million men believe in his sincerity and patriotism to the extent that they will vote as they think he believes. At least a million men who ordinarily vote the Democratic ticket will not vote for Mr. Bryan; he realizes this and knows now that there is no use to run now, and perhaps this will be true as long as he is alive.

Another thing: If the Democracy wants the curtain to fall on it again, and this time forever, let it try the experiment of electing a man without knowing whether he can work in harmony with his party in Congress. That was where Cleveland fell down and took his party with him. We know Champ Clark can work harmoniously with Democrats in Congress; he got them together when he did not have even a committee assignment to give; he got them together, whipped the enemy, and won a great victory at the polls. He found the Democrats of the House a mob; they are now a solid phalanx and will elect him Speaker without a dissenting voice. This is the kind of leadership the party has long needed; hasn’t it sense enough to recognize it when it comes? If we elect Harmon or Wilson, can any man do more than guess that perhaps he may be able to sort of get along with is party in Congress? Why not elect the man who has proved that he can do it?

I am, sir,

OLD POLITICIAN.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW - March, 1911

The Political Predestination of Woodrow Wilson

Whether predestination is absolute or conditional is a cardinal point of controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians whose determination is not essential to the purpose of the following argument. Equally foreign to need in welding the chain of reasoning is decision of the question of dominance over the world - whether of a personal God or of the powers of Nature. But two assumptions on the part of the reader are requisite to understanding: (1) That the laws of logic, growing out of conditions and circumstances, are irrefragable as applied to human affairs, and (2) that, even so, irrespective election of an individual, without reference to the use he may make of his moral agency, cannot be maintained.

Upon this hypothesis we confidently base the prediction that, barring accidents of a physical nature, the two chief opposing candidates for the Presidency of the United States in 1912 will be William Howard Taft, Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, Democrat. We do not presume to impute to dialectics the nomination of the former. That, frankly, must be taken for granted. The reasons for its assumption, however, are sufficiently obvious. (1) He is a candidate. (2) He controls the federal patronage. (3) He has won the confidence and respect of the people in large measure and is gaining favor daily. (4) He is gradually acquiring the active friendship of the inevitably conservative business men, without whose support no candidate has been elected President since 1832. (5) He is and will be unopposed by Roosevelt for the very practical reason that defeat or election will spell the ending of his career as President, probably immediately, but surely at the expiration of four years. (6) His rejection by the National Convention would be unprecedented and would presage certain defeat of the party at the polls.

But one obstacle lies in his path - Insurgency. By a remote possibility the new and eager League of Radical Republicans may secure control of the convention and nominate, not Cummins, the wheel horse, but La Follette, the resolute, imaginative, inspiring leader. In that event, the Democrats will nominate Judson Harmon in consequence of causes precisely analogous to those set forth below which render the choice of Woodrow Wilson as the opponent of President Taft a virtual certainty.

Logic predestines antithesis. Circumstances, conditions, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, demand it. History decrees it. Invariably the opposing candidate has been named, not by the opposition itself, but by the party taking the lead - in all but three instances by the party in power.

Sift the records! Sharp alignment of political organizations was first made in 1840. Prior to that time the elements constituting general opposition had been segregated and their strength dissipated. Four candidates had entered the race against Van Buren in 1836 and each had received votes in the electoral college, but Jackson’s representative had a majority over all.

1840. - Van Buren reaped where Jackson had sown and his administration was a failure. Nevertheless, his renomination was universally accepted as a certainty when representatives of the new Whig party assembled for the first time in national convention to designate a candidate for President. Much difficulty was experienced in reconciling the various discordant elements and great deliberation characterized the proceedings. Three days were, consumed in conferences of committees representing the various delegations. Clay was recognized as the ablest man in the party, was the most popular, was the natural choice, and, at the beginning, was a prime favorite. Even as late as the second day the aggregate informal vote of the committees was: For Clay, 103; for William Henry Harrison, 97; for Winfield Scott, 57. And yet on the succeeding day Harrison was nominated by acclamation. Clay, the intellectual leader, the idol of the masses, the experienced statesman, had been found to be “unavailable.” Why? He was too like Van Buren. Both were skilled in statecraft and politics; both were civilians; both were dependent for public favor upon recognition of their mental gifts and shrewd practices. An opposite was the requirement of the opposition. Harrison, the rough-and-ready soldier, the military hero, met the unconscious demand.

1844. - Clay’s star was in the ascendant and he received every vote in the Whig national convention. Van Buren, who had been beaten by Harrison, was the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. On the first ballot he received 146 votes to 83 for Lewis Cass and 24 for R. M. Johnson and he held the lead till the fifth. The delegates sympathized with Van Buren’s desire for vindication. He was still considered the most sagacious political manager within the party. But on the ninth ballot the unknown Polk was nominated. Why? For the same reasons that Clay was defeated for the Whig candidacy against Van Buren in 1840. The similarity had continued too marked. Both had just declared themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas. Both had long records in political service to uphold and defend. Both were affirmative. Polk was wholly negative. His views were unknown; his convictions adaptable. Polk was chosen.

1848. - The Democratic convention named Lewis Cass to succeed Polk. Although he bore a military title, the nominee was noted chiefly as a lawyer and an orator. The leading candidates before the Whig convention were Clay, Daniel Webster, Scott, and Zachary Taylor. Clay was still the idol of his party and Webster its greatest statesman. Both were lawyers and famous orators. Both were rejected. Of the two remaining candidates, Scott and Taylor, both were heroes of the Mexican War. But Scott was the more cultivated, the more diplomatic, the more courtly, and the prize went to “Old Zach,” the uncouth, the very antithesis of Cass.

1852. - Millard Fillmore had succeeded to the Presidency, upon the death of Taylor, in 1850. Clay had revived his famous compromise measures and secured their enactment, thereby so weakening the Whigs in the North without strengthening them in the South that the reunited Democrats aggressively demonstrated their confidence by holding their convention in advance of their opponents. On the forty-ninth ballot they nominated Franklin Pierce, an inconspicuous and inoffensive Governor of New Hampshire, who nevertheless embodied the spirit of the “young democracy.” Two weeks later the Whigs assembled. Fillmore was the natural or “logical” candidate and led on the first ballot, but on the fifty-third General Winfield Scott, the opposite in all respects of the young civilian, Pierce, was nominated.

1856. - Pierce’s administration was a failure and early in June the Democrats nominated James Buchanan, the experienced statesman and diplomat. The Whig party had perished and its successor, the Republican party, held its first convention in Philadelphia on June 17, 1856. There was no expectation that a distinctive Republican could win. The only apparent possibility of success lay in finding a candidate who would draw the votes of both the Whigs and Americans. Such an one was the jurist, McLean, who received very strong support. But, as ever, when the time came for action McLean’s similarity to the Democratic nominee proved fatal to his aspiration and the prize went to John C. Fremont, therdashing young general, “the millionaire without a dollar, the soldier who never fought a battle, the statesman who never made a speech,” the man unlike Buchanan in more particulars than any other who could have been selected.

1860. - The Democratic party broke in twain at its National Convention in Charleston in April before a vote was'taken for candidates. Upon the adoption of the Douglas platform the delegations from eight Southern states withdrew. Nobody could obtain two-thirds of the votes remaining, but, Douglas held a plurality of nearly one hundred on fifty-seven ballots. The convention then adjourned to reassemble in Baltimore on June 18th. Meanwhile the seceders had arranged to meet in Richmond on June 11th.

This was the situation when the second Republican convention was called to order on May 16th. The nomination of Seward seemed assured. Who could hope to compete with the foremost Republican statesman, the great Governor of the greatest state, the one commanding figure standing forth luminously against the background of the new organization? Thurlow Weed, the master of political managers, fully anticipated his nomination on the first ballot, and when the votes were cast a large plurality, 173 1/2 to 102, did indeed go to Seward. But a clear majority was lacking and on the third ballot Abraham Lincoln was nominated.

Why? The result at Charleston, though not conclusive, had made clear the fact that the Republican candidate must oppose Douglas. Was Seward, the statesman of like class, the man for the undertaking? No; instead, Lincoln the rail-splitter, Lincoln the gaunt and awkward country lawyer, “Old Abe” the story-teller, yet one and the only one whose mettle had been proven in debate with the Little Giant himself - his nomination was decreed and inevitable.

1864. - Lincoln was renominated as a matter of course—the man of peace, the lover of concord, the rustic civilian. Instinctively and instantly the Democrats named in opposition General George B. McClellan, the man trained to war, the practised soldier, the accomplished gentleman.

1868. - Again a military hero—Grant, named with complete unanimity by the Republicans in May. The Democrats met in July. McClellan was not mentioned, but Hancock stood third on the first ballot. His time, however, was not yet, not against another military chieftain. Tradition forbade. On eighteen of the first twenty-one ballots not a solitary vote was cast for Seymour. Pathetically, when the tide seemed to be turning his wav, he beseeched his fellow-delegates, “ Your candidate I cannot be.” But remonstrance was unavailing. The Logic of Circumstance compelled the nomination of the “ Peace Governor,” the very opposite of Grant; and on the twenty-second ballot not a vote was cast against him.

1872. - Grant again! Grant the sturdy, silent, soldier President; Grant the Democrat turned Republican. Against him, Greeley the vociferator, Greeley the genius erratic, Greeley the Republican turned Democrat.

1876. - Hayes, the commonplace, the “safe-and-sane” Governor of Ohio, had been designated by the Republicans when the Democrats met in June. Hendricks of Indiana awaited the Democratic nomination. A far stronger, more popular, more appealing statesman than Hayes, his supporters, led by the capable McDonald and aided by powerful Tammany, were more than confident of securing for their favorite the prize. But he, too, was a mid-Western Governor; he, too, was prudent, conservative. Tilden, the reformer, the radical, was named on the first ballot, and the men from Indiana sat in their seats as if stunned and refused to make the vote unanimous. They felt betrayed when, in fact, only the inevitable had happened.

1880. - Garfield was not named as a soldier, but as a statesman. He had become the chief figure in the House of Representatives, had just been elected to the Senate, and was reckoned one of the most eloquent and persuasive orators in the land. Bayard was the most fit Democratic candidate, as he was the foremost Democratic statesman and orator, but therein he resembled Garfield. Tradition pointed unerringly to Hancock, graduate of the Military Academy, the “ superb soldier ” who neither possessed nor assumed to possess any knowledge of public affairs or any capacity for civil government.

1884. - Blaine at last - the dashing leader, the experienced statesman, the brilliant orator, the Plumed Knight. Again Bayard was a candidate. But he, too, was a Richard; he, too, had served long in Congress; he, too, was an eloquent speaker. Enter the stolid Cleveland, who then was famed only for common sense and sturdy courage, who uttered platitudes monotonously, who had never served in a legislative assembly, and who had never even visited the national capitol.

1888. - Cleveland renominatedl But a different Cleveland. No longer conservative. Now an ardent tariff reformer, almost a free-trader, held to be a radical. Against him Harrison the ultraconservative, “uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection.”

1892. - Again Harrison vs. Cleveland.

1896. - For the second time the opposition took the lead. McKinley, the good, kindly, patient, painstaking, serious McKinley, was named on the first ballot: Three weeks later the Democrats met in Chicago. The radicals were in full control. Free Silver was the only cry, and Bland, the apostle of Free Silver, was regarded as an almost certain winner. But Bland differed little from McKinley. In their upbringing, in temperament, in method, in Congressional service, in previous attitude toward silver, even in manner, they were not unlike. It is commonly said that Bryan won the nomination with a striking speech. But who can tell what would have happened if that oration had not been delivered? It was a convention of radicals seeking a radical candidate. Bland could never have satisfied; nor Boies; nor Pattison; nor Campbell; nor any one bearing the slightest resemblance in thought, word, or deed to the prudent McKinley. The nomination of a Bryan was inevitable - predestined by the Logic of Circumstance.

1900. - Again Bryan vs. McKinley.

1904. - Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency and had been unable wholly to resist the impulses of his ardent temperament to break away from the traditional policies of his party. Already he was recognized as embodying the spirit of the times which has since been termed progressiveness. He had, in fact, appropriated so many of Bryan’s notions that the political inclinations of the two could hardly be contrasted with marked effect. So patent was his tendency that, but for the death of Hanna, the controlling elements of the Republican party would probably have tried to defeat him in the convention. However, he was nominated without dissent.

Bryan had then been absolute master of the Democratic organization for eight years. He held undisputed control of the National Committee, and his great personal popularity had not waned perceptibly. Had a Republican nominee of the McKinley type been designated, his power would have been unbroken and he would have named the Democratic candidate. But the nomination of the Promising radical Roosevelt fixed the outcome of the Democratic convention irresistibly. With all his authority and personal following Bryan could not hold even the one-third essential to the defeat of Parker, whom he had attacked viciously; and the staid and sober judge was named in opposition to the fiery Roosevelt.

1908. - Back swung the pendulum. Roosevelt’s tempestuous administration was reaching its close. Taft was nominated - Taft the moderate, the pacificator, the judge considerate, patient, kind, the natural and proud successor, as he has since declared, of his prototype, McKinley. The old Republican leaders breathed more freely. After all, the Roosevelt disturbance might prove to have been only an episode.

Such was the condition when the Democratic convention assembled in Denver. Only four years before the conservatives had dominated completely. They still controlled the National Committee. But they were as helpless in the face of the Taft nomination as Bryan had been in the face of Roosevelt’s candidacy. Again the fetching orator became the standard-bearer of the Democracy and achieved the customary party disaster.

Such the record! In each and every instance the type of opposing candidate, if not the man himself, has been marked by the party making the first declaration. Invariably seemingly coherent certainty has yielded to the greater power of the Logic of Conditions - the irresistible demand of Circumstance for Antithesis.

SUMMARY.

1840. - The assured nomination of Van Buren compelled the nomination of Harrison in place of Clay.

1844. - The nomination of Clay compelled the nomination of Polk in place of Van Buren.

1848. - The nomination of Cass compelled the nomination of Taylor in place of Clay, Webster, or even Scott.

1852. - The nomination of Pierce compelled the nomination of Scott in place of Fillmore.

1856. - The nomination of Buchanan compelled the nomination of Fremont in place of McLean.

1860. - The assumed nomination of Douglas compelled the nomination of Lincoln in place of Seward.

1864. - The renomination of Lincoln compelled the nomination of McClellan in place of Seymour.

1868. - The nomination of Grant compelled the nomination of Seymour in place of McClellan.

1872. - The renomination of Grant compelled the nomination of a Greeley.

1876. - The nomination of Hayes compelled the nomination of Tilden in place of Hendricks.

1880. - The nomination of Garfield compelled the nomination of Hancock in place of Bayard.

1884. - The nomination of Blaine compelled the nomination of Cleveland in place of Bayard or Randall.

1888. - The renomination of Cleveland compelled the nomination of Harrison.

1892. - The situation reversed.

1896. - The nomination of McKinley compelled the nomination of Bryan in place of Bland or Boies.

1900. - The situation reversed.

1904. The nomination of Roosevelt compelled the nomination of Parker in place of Bryan or Cockrell.

1908. - The nomination of Taft compelled the nomination of Bryan in place of Parker or any conservative.

Therefore, in

1915 the renomination of Taft will compel the nomination of Wilson in place of Harmon, just as the nomination of La Follette would compel the nomination of Harmon in place of Wilson.

Why?

Obviously but one theme of inquiry demands consideration: Who is the real Antithesis of Taft? Bryan? Yes, as in 1908. But Bryan’s races have been run. Gaynor? Yes; but Gaynor is disqualfied by Fate. Folk? Yes; but Folk clearly is outclassed. Champ Clark? Theoretically, perhaps, but practically only as a pretty compliment. Dix? The carrier of water upon both shoulders? The upholder of party fealty, on the one hand, and the source of pretexts to bolters on the other? Neither opposite nor apposite is Dix. Remain Harmon and Wilson. Which, we repeat, is the Antithesis of Taft? Unroll the moving portraits.

In but one essential particular - that of age - is marked a greater dissimilarity between Taft and Harmon than between Taft and Wilson; and that seriously to Harmon’s disadvantage, in view of the facts that the average age of Presidents at inauguration has been only fifty-three, and that of the three elected when more than sixty-four two died within the year.

The contrast is complete, conclusive; the evidencc overwhelming. The finger of Predestination, guided by Logic, Circumstance, Conditions, and History points unerringly to Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, as the opponent of William H. Taft, Republican, in 1912. Blessed Columbia!

Note the points of similarity and of divergence:

CHARACTERISTICS	TAFT	HARMON	WILSON
Age in 1913	Fifty-five	Sixty-seven	Fifty-six
Physique	Robust, portly	Solid, heavy	Lithe, sinewy
Environment	Mid-west	Mid-west	South, East
Habitation	Ohio	Ohio	New Jersey
Ancestry	English	English	Scotch-Irish
Religion	Unitarian	Baptist	Presbyterian
Recreation	Golf to excess	Golf in moderation	Golf at minimum
Temperament	Prudent	Cautious	Daring
Manner	Genial	Serious	Graceful
Address	Winning	Friendly	Charming
Nature	Grateful	Appreciative	Just
Grain	Compassionate	Stoical	Tenacious
Temper	Sweet, mellow	Cool, controlled	Quick, zealous
Intellect	Capacious	Plodding	Keen, imaginative
Knowledge	Wide	Restricted	Profound
Mental attitude	Tolerant	Considerate	Self-reliant
Disposition	Conciliatory	Steadfast	Uncompromising
Expression	Earnest, pleasing	Commonplace	Eloquent, persuasive
Diction	Fair	Ordinary	Fine
As Lawyers	Judicial	Essentially sound	Analytical
Politics	McKinley Republican	Cleveland Democrat	Tilden Democrat
Political purpose	Steady progression	Stability	Reform
Political tendency	Mildly progressive	Conservative	Intelligently radical
Political character	Pure	Strong	Luminous
Political convictions	Constant	Firm	Immovable

Echoes

MARCH 11, 1911

THE SCHOOLMASTER IN POLITICS

From the St. Paul Pioneer “Press”

Just at this writing Woodrow Wilson looms upon the political horizon, casting considerable of a shadow. Likewise his situation is one involving some hazard and some uncertainty.

For some months prior to the fall elections Brother George Harvey kept HARPER'S WEEKLY on tiptoe yelling that Wilson must be the next President of the United States. For some weeks after the election he was equally vociferous.

This enthusiastic support resulted in William Jennings Bryan and his cohorts entertaining very grave suspicions of Woodrow Wilson. It argued that Mr. Wilson was, perhaps, too acceptable to Wall Street influences.

Mr. Wilson, promising to be a real Governor, swept New Jersey and immediately started in to be a real Governor. He came out strongly for popular government, the Oregon plan, and other reforms, and he started a fierce battle against the bosses of his party three hours after he was elected. The bosses turned on him with terrific abuse and attempted to scare him out. He would not scare. They tried to flatter him and he would not “fall for the oily stuff.”

He went to the finish and beat the bosses and corruptionists out of their boots.

Wall Street’s candidate for Senator was beautifully beaten, and all because of Governor Wilson’s nerve in doing just what he told the people he would do if elected.

Now Mr. Bryan comes out and says he was mistaken in Wilson, that he rejoices to do him honor, and commends him most heartily as a true and triumphant Democrat.

Mr. Wilson now stands in the position of being the only Eastern Democrat who has won the regard of the Bryan following.

The question now is, Did Wilson in making on corruption, and especially in winning the Bryan eulogy, also retain his apparent strength with the “old-line Democrats” of the East? Will George Harvey have heart failure now that Bryan has appropriated Mr. Wilson to his cause?

If Wilson still holds his strength in the East, his new position in the Bryan affections will make him most formidable in the next Democratic convention.

At-any rate, the former president of Princeton has proved that he is a real leader, a fighter, and a politician of keen insight and effective strategy. He swept his state because he promised the people that he would fight the gang. He kept his word. Conservative, scholastic, and generally scorned as a dreamer before election by the practical politicians, he outwitted them all - and he did it by keeping faith with the people and taking an advanced stand on behalf of the principles of popular government. He had the nerve to jump into the senatorial contest in his state and force the legislature to keep faith with his people, while the interests shrieked themselves hoarse about the awfuluess of an executive dictating to the legislature.

So the schoolmaster has become a national figure, and a continuance of his virile administration thus far will make him a commanding figure in the next national convention of his party.

THE CANDIDATE OF THE PEOPLE

From the Detroit “Journal”

What about the "academic," the "hypercultured," the “theoretical ” Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey - now? He has elected his man, James E. Martine, the primary nominee, to the United States Senate in a fierce contest fought out in the New Jersey legislature. James Smith, Jr., yesterday withdrew. James Smith, Jr., the most powerful political figure in and the admitted Democratic boss of New Jersey, until the coming of the ex-president of Princeton, has been overthrown by Governor Woodrow Wilson.

For years Colonel-Editor George Harvey’s eulogies to and roseate prophecies for Woodrow Wilson were wont to elicit only good-humored giggles. And those dinners to Dr. Woodrow Wilson that Colonel-Editor Harvey used to give to stimulate Wilsonian sentiment in the revivified Democracy! Exquisite viands exquisitely served! All the guests slapped the editor and the doctor on the back and went home chuckling. If any chuckling is being done just now Editor Harvey and Governor Woodrow Wilson are clearly entitled to do it.

It was startling to some of the earlier gigglers when Dr. Woodrow Wilson, by a majority of forty thousand in a state that is just as likely to go Republican as Democratic, was elected Governor of New Jersey last fall. But he didn't stop there. He tucked his academic gown into his belt and waded into Boss James Smith, Jr., who had been the Boss Murphy of New Jersey for decades, and Woodrow Wilson has driven him to cover.

What is to be the effect of this? There are lots of probable effects; big ones. With the announcement of Boss Jim Smith's surrender Governor Woodrow Wilson leaped from the level of "Presidential potentialities" to the pinnacle of undeniable possibilities. Had he been unable to beat Boss Jim Smith for the Senate, Governor Woodrow Wilson would have lost the following of the New Jersey Democracy, probably a New Jersey delegation to the national Democratic convention. However, as the Journal a few days ago pointed out, he would even then have won strength in the national party. But Woodrow Wilson won, won in New Jersey. He has control of his party and his party controls the state. He will go to the national Democratic convention in 1912, in all probability with a solid New Jersey delegation clamoring for his nomination as President.

Woodrow Wilson is an Eastern Democrat. With the possible exception of Mayor Gaynor, there is no one in New York State to challenge his Eastern leadership.

AN OLD-FASHIONED CONVENTION

From the Omaha “Bee”

The question has been raised as to the expediency of Governor Woodrow Wilson’s course in adopting the Oregon idea of government. Will it tend to strengthen or weaken his Presidential candidacy? He has been mentioned as satisfactory to the conservative, not to say reactionary, element of Democracy. How will this action on his part suit that element? Some of these old-liners already have expressed disappointment at the Governor’s step. The discussion serves to deepen the interest centering about him as the chief rival of Harmon for the Democratic nomination next year.

But Dr. Wilson has not begun his political career with an apparent effort to cater to any class in particular; that is, any class of politicians. He has been almost defiant thus far in ignoring safety-valves and distress signals, and he is likely to continue in that course. At least one of the old guard. Colonel George Harvey, has failed to find fault with him for it, too. Colonel Harvey, always an anti-Bryan Democrat, does not even waver in his support of Dr. Wilson because the doctor stood for the radical Bryan apostle, James E. Martine, as against James Smith, Jr., an old-liner, for Senator from New Jersey. The Colonel thinks very little of Senator-elect Martine as a statesman, but he does not allow that to dissuade him from his devotion to Governor Wilson, whom he hails as “the knight errant of the new Democracy,” and says "and as such will be nominated for President in opposition to William H. Taft."

MARCH 18, 1911

“A VERY GREAT PROBABILITY”

From the New York “Times”

It was a shrewd and experienced Frenchman who declared: “No generalization is absolutely true. not even this one.” The leading article in The North American Review for March concludes as follows:

“The finger of Predestination, guided by Logic, Circumstance, Conditions, and History, points unerringly to Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, as the‘ opponent of William H. Taft, Republican, in 1912. Blessed Columbia!

“THE EDITOR.”

This impressive statement is based on a relatively simple inference from the history of politics in the United States for the last seventy years - viz., that when one party has named or is sure to name a candidate, the other party has named one as completely different as could be found. The opposing candidates are marshaled in due order and the contrast is brought out as clearly as the facts admit. Then the nomination of Mr. Taft is assumed and “the moving portraits” of Taft, Harmon, and Wilson are “unrolled” to prove that Harmon is too like Taft to get the nomination and Wilson too unlike Taft to escape.

We submit, with the modesty called for when commenting on the “Finger of Predestination,” that the contrast shown is not so obvious, deep, and complete as to shut out all chance of error. The “ancestry" of the two men is not radically different; the “manner” and “address” are quite alike; the “political tendency" may be interpreted as similar, and the “political convictions” are far from irreconcilable.

The “Finger” must have groped and dug diligently to find matter for “unerring” inference on these points as described. And it is to be added that neither on these points nor on some of the others is the insight of the writer beyond question. The Senators who have been trying to mold the President’s policy to suit their personal aims during the last three months have found him quite as “tenacious” as Mr. Wilson ever was, and Mr. Hale, for example, would hardly describe him a excessively “compassionate.” Some of them may think him “prudent.” for he has refused to walk the path on which their traps were laid, but the stand-putters would say that the spirit in which he has dealt with Canadian reciprocity is as "daring" as anything yet done by the new Governor of New Jersey. We think Colonel Harvey goes a little too far when he says that "the contrast is complete, conclusive, the evidence overwhelming." He has made a plausible guess at the probable course of events in the near future, and he sustains it by some interesting, though somewhat overworked, historical analogies, but "the Political Predestination of Woodrow Wilson," he hardly establishes on this basis, as the hero of it doubtless very plainly perceives. The very great probability that Governor Wilson will be the Democratic candidate is hardly strengthened by the argument from predestination.

A QUESTION OF "FORM"

From the Philadelphia “Inquirer”

Colonel George Harvey, head of the publishing-house of Harper & Brothers, editor of the WEEKLY and of The North American Review, has been something of a stormy petrel in politics of late. He has indulged in destructive criticism to an extent which must have rattled the bones of the late George William Curtis. His antipathy to Colonel Roosevelt knows no bounds and his language at times is unparliamentary. While his rank as a publicist is due to his personal ability quite as much as to the influence of his organs of opinion, he is always interesting and often a shrewd prophet. He has just published in the Review an article prophesying the nomination of Taft by the Republicans next year and the compulsory nomination of Governor Woodrow Wilson as a direct result.

The renomination of Taft seems as well assured as anything so far ahead in politics can be predetermined. It is certain that only some great mistake on his part or refusal to run will deprive him of the customary honor. Colonel Harvey admits that Taft is growing in strength and that, although the socalled insurgent movement has lost none of its force, it is not likely to be turned against Taft, because such a policy would be suicidal in view of the existing political situation.

But the Democratic nomination is much more in doubt, and it is interesting to know Colonel Harvey's reasons. He publishes in tabular form an analysis of the characteristics, qualities, and accomplishments of Taft, Wilson, and Harmon, the latter being, as he conceives, the only possible rival of the-New Jersey Governor. His results are quite unfavorable to the Ohio Governor. Harmon is too old, too conservative, and to deficient in winning personality. He is overmatched at all points by Wilson. If this were a matter of a horse-race it would look as if “form” was all in favor of the New Jersey man. There are others, but Colonel Harvey cannot see them. Bryan is impossible, Gaynor disqualified by Fate, Folk is outclassed, Champ Clark only a complimentary candidate, and Dix a trimmer.

All of which is very interesting, but Democratic nominations do not always result from logical situations. No one can tell what a thousand unterrified Democrats will do in convention. Pleasing as the showing must be to the friends of Wilson, it must be said that a political campaign is run on different lines from that of a patent-infringement suit.

WELL-GROUNDED CONFIDENCE

From the Perth Amboy “News” Colonel Harvey says Governor Wilson will certainly be the next Democratic candidate for President. We are inclined to believe Colonel Harvey is right.

WORTH KEEPING FOR REFERENCE

From the Baltimore “Sun”

The political prognostication in which Mr. George Harvey indulges in an article in The North American Review, quoted in yesterday’s Sun, is most interesting. The conclusion at which he arrives is that Mr. Taft will almost certainly be renominated next year and that his renomination will force the nomination of Woodrow Wilson by the Democrats. Mr. Harvey admits that there is a remote possibility of the defeat of Mr. Taft by the insurgents or progressives. If they control the convention he thinks the nominee will be La Follette. In that event, he continues, the Democrats will nominate Judson Harmon in consequence of causes precisely analogous to those which will render the choice of Wilson as the opponent of Taft a virtual certainty. Logic, he contends, predestines antithesis. This he undertakes to prove by the various nominations made since 1832, but his proof in this regard looks more like assertion than evidence. As a rule, he assumes that where one party nominates a conservative the other must nominate, or, at least, has always nominated, a radical or one not so conservative.

It is not apparent, however, that this has been the case. Both Hayes and Tilden were conservatives. There was no antithesis in this respect between Cleveland and Harrison. Why should the nomination of McKinley in 1896, for instance, have compelled the nomination of Bryan? Free-silverism was the paramount issue at the time. McKinley had committed himself by his votes in Congress to the free-silver theory. The wise and logical thing for the Democrats to have done at that time would have been to nominate a man like William L. Wilson. Instead of this, in a frenzy, the party nominated Mr. Bryan, endorsed free silver and other things which were foreign to its historic principles, and thereby put the Republican party in control of every state in the Union except those of the old Confederacy, which were held together on the race issue. But will the renomination of Mr. Taft necessitate the nomination of Governor Wilson? Might not the friends of Governor Harmon argue that, he being the only man who could carry Ohio against Taft, and Ohio possibly being essential to Democratic success, the renomination of Taft would force the nomination of Harmon?

Moreover, is it sure that if the insurgents should be in control of the Republican National Committee they would nominate La Follette? Would not Roosevelt be the more probable nominee? Still, Mr. Harvey’s speculations are ingenious and have a certain air of plausibility that makes them worth while remembering for future reference.

MARCH 25, 1911

NEW JERSEY IS PROPERLY PROUD

From the Newark Sunday “Call"

Mr. George Harvey, having made a Governor for New Jersey, proposes to make a President of the United States from the same material. Mr. Harvey is editor and owner of The North American Review, and in the last number of this periodical declares that Woodrow Wilson is to be the Democratic nominee for President against Mr. Taft. His analysis of the men and the situation leaves no doubt as to his own preferences. Mr. Harvey, who is also editor of HARPER’S WEEKLY and HARPER’S MAGAZINE, has been a New Jersey politician in his time, and his title of "Colonel" came to him as a member of Governor Abbett’s staff. He is commonly credited with having induced ex-Senator Smith and other Democratic leaders to accept Mr. Wilson as the party's candidate for Governor, and they and he were convinced that by naming the doctor they were putting him in line for the Presidential nomination. It is needless to remark that since the election Colonel Harvey has not had the assistance of his former associates in advancing the cause. There have been other recruits enlisted, however, and the mail of the Governor is filled with letters from supporters, we understand, while an organization occasionally pledges its support.

Colonel Harvey bases his confident prediction of Governor Wilson’s nomination in 1912 upon his own assertion that President Taft will be renominated. Dr. Wilson, to his mind, represents the opposite of Mr. Taft, and the editor goes so far as to tabulate the differences, physical and sportive as well as mental and political. The radical position taken by the Governor on measures which Jerseymen, in their narrowness, have regarded as state issues, are evidently considered by the Governor’s friend and backer as essentially characteristic. Dr. Wilson is tabulated as “daring,” “uncompromising.” “intelligently radical,” “immovable,” and his political purpose as “reform." He resembles the President only in is age and in the fact that he is “charming,” while the President is “winning” in manner.

We of New Jersey have not looked with delight upon Colonel Harvey as a political adviser, but there is no question of his influence through the periodicals he controls and his wide acquaintance with potent persons. His intimacy with Governor Wilson, the fact that the latter is a frequent contributor to Colonel Harvey’s magazines, and that his books are published by the concern of which Colonel Harvey is the manager, sufficiently indicate that the Colonel speaks with knowledge of Governor Wilson’s views, and probably of his ambitions and private opinions. If the Colonel can make Dr. Wilson President, it is as good as done and Dr. Wilson is willing.

New Jersey has had a candidate before national Democratic conventions in the person of the late Governor Joel Parker, while General McClellan, the nominee against President Lincoln in 1864, was afterward a Jerseyman and a Governor, too. Grover Cleveland was born and died a Jerseyman, but the interval of his political activity was spent as a New-Yorker. Vice-President Hobart was a Jerseyman, and Theodore Frelinghuysen and William L. Dayton were candidates for the second office. But we have never had a Governor of New Jersey right in the forefront of the national combat, with an editor of the North American behind him. It is a novel experience and highly interesting. It is also somewhat embarrassing. This is a homely little state, accustomed in its small way to have Governors look after the Cape May County judgeships carefully, and to remember whether Lew Martin was Senator of Sussex, or only judge, or both. To have a Governor in full training for President, with every utterance noted in Nevada and in Maine, and addresses to the West Hudson Board of Trade read with eagerness in North Carolina, and perhaps farther, is an unaccustomed and difficult experience. One feels the sense of discomfort which afflicts the father whose daughter's poem has been published in the local paper. One does not know just what one’s manners should be with such a child of genius in the family.

However, we Jersey folk will learn to bear our honors jauntily in time, no doubt, and it will be a present relief to realize that the Governor’s eloquent utterances and broad discussions of general issues are not intended wholly for Jersey ears. The point of view changes at once, and the alarm that some have felt that New Jersey is to be reformed all in a minute will subside into the continual joy of watching what Colonel Harvey and the Governor are accomplishing in the national arena.

DENVER GIVES IT UP

From the Denver “Republican”

The distinguished editor of the Harper publications, in the current issue of The North American Review, enters upon prophecy. It has to do with the Presidential campaign, which is far enough removed to make divination a popular pastime. Mr. Harvey, as his antecedents would foretell, is a believer in qualified predestination and foreordination; and it has been oreordaincd that Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, shall line up against President Taft in 1912!

By way of digression it should be stated that for years Editor Harvey has been nursing and coddling Princeton’s former president as the hope of the national Democratic party. Up to the present Mr. Wilson's manager has done well; he has not forced his candidate or entered him where the odds against success were too great. As a result of this splendid conservation the new state executive of the trust conunoiiwealth stands well in the forefront.

When we wrote that Mr. Harvey betrayed his ancestry by basing his prediction upon predestination, or, in other words. that Mr. Wilson had been born to the “purple” of the White House, therefore he must ascend, we would have been pleased to let it stand there; but the modern king-maker is mistrustful of himself. He inserts an “if.” His prophecy is based on the premise that Mr. Taft is chosen by his party as its leader, failing which Governor Wilson must stand aside for the present and await a more opportune season.

If the Republican party should turn from Taft to to La Follette, there would be place for Harmon of Ohio, the stolid, old-fashioned Democrat, as an offset, an antithesis to “Bob son of Battle” of Wisconsin. This may sound illogical at first blush. Why not nominate the fine-grained, staunch head of a famous university as against a firebrand? The answer comes from the Harvey table published with the article showing the characteristics of the candidates. In “temperament” Taft is set down as “prudent,” Harmon as “cautious.” and Wilson as “daring.” In “temper” the incumbent of the Executive chair is “ sweet, mellow,” while Harmon is “cool, controlled,” but Wilson is “quick, zealous.” This table of characteristics goes through the phrenological chart to prove that Wilson is a demigod while the others are mortal. The point sought to be made, however, is this, that La Follctte and Wilson are too much alike in characteristics to be chosen as opponents. In support of this contention Mr. Harvey goes back seventy years to show that national conventions obey the “law of antithesis.” To go no farther back, the nomination of Roosevelt by one party compelled the nomination, not of Bryan, but of Parker, by the other party. The nomination of Taft, the judicial, mildly progressive Republican, brought Bryan to the front the next time.

All this sounds so plausible we are almost ashamed to confess that we are “ stumped.”

GIVE THE VOTER A CHANCE

From the St. Louis “Times”

Mr. George Harvey, a political prophet, who has succeeded in amazing the simple-minded on more than one occasion by the accuracy of his predictions, has written an article for the current number of The North American Review, in which he maintains that if the Republican party nominates William H. Taft in 1912 (as he thinks inevitable, in view of numerous precedents) it will be necessary for the Democrats to nominate Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey.

On the other hand, if by some revolutionary process the Republicans were to nominate La Follette, it would prove necessary for the opposite party to name Judson Harmon as their leader.

The first thought suggested by this "programme of predestination” is that it seems amazing that the average voter is still the tool of a few men who represent nobody and nothing save themselves, and who have no consideration for anything save stratagems.

The voter is, theoretically, the man who elects a President; theoretically, again, his choice would seem to be made from among the suitable men of the nation. But as a matter of fact his privilege of voting is narrowed down to two candidates who are not of his choosing, and for neither of whom he may entertain a very high opinion. The few who make the selections have, according to Mr. Harvey, no special thought as to the fitness of the man, other than as his fitness consists of a good chance to defeat the other fellow.

The second thought arising from the plan Mr. Harvey has mapped out is that the Democrats seem destined to play in bad luck to the end. For Mr. Wilson, we believe, is as little representative of present-day Democracy as any individual that could be found.

The party of Jefferson seems to be gaining in opportunity to be supplied with everything save promising candidates.

REMOTE POSSIBILITIES

From the Syracuse “Post-Standard”

George Harvey has an article in The North American Review he calls “The Political Predestination of Woodrow Wilson.” It is an attempt to predict the nominations of the national conventions of 1912 by historical analogy. No one can take note of the effect which the nomination of the dominant and entrenched party has bad in determining the selection by the minority party without acknowledging the force of Mr. Harvey’s argument - that the logic of events points to the nomination by the Democratic national convention of Governor Wilson.

Mr. Taft, says the writer, will be renominated. It would be unprecedented in the Republican party to refuse him the nomination. He closes to-morrow the first half of his administration with more general favor than he closed the first year and with the prospect of gaining rather than losing popular support. Mr. Taft is conservative. Against him Mr. Harvey argues the Democrats must nominate a radical. Reviewing the elections from 1840 to 1908, he shows that the party out of power has sought not a candidate similar to the nominee of its opponents, but dissimilar. While the Democrats have run the radical Bryan against the conservative McKinley and Taft, they chose the conservative Parker against the radical Roosevelt; and the antitheses are quite as striking in elections farther back. Wherefore he argues that as between Wilson and Harmon, the only two whom Colonel Harvey recognizcs as serious candidates for the nomination, Wilson will be preferred.

Still, Colonel Harvey will admit, much may happen in the next year.

Among Democrats

You can turn aside from the measure if you choose, you can decline to follow me, you can deprive me of office and turn away from me, but you cannot deprive me of power so long as I steadfastly stand for what I believe to be the interests and legitimate demands of the people themselves. I beg you to remember, in this which promises to be an historic conference in the annals of the party of the state, you are settling the question of power or impotence, the distinction or the ignominy, of the party to which the people with a singular generosity have offered the control of their affairs.

These sentences of Governor WILSON were spoken in the course of a prolonged conference with the Democrats of the House of Assembly of New Jersey in which he urged them to live up to the letter and the spirit of the platform on which he and they were elected. They are, perhaps, not very extraordinary sentences - merely a forceful wording of idea? that cannot be called new. But they were spoken long after - not before - the election; by a man who meant every word of them; to men who knew that he meant what he said and that he would not hesitate a moment, if there should be need, to go from them straight to the people and by “publicity, pitiless publicity,” make his words good. Must they not also have felt that what he said was not merely sincere, but true; not merely true, but wise? Such a leader, with the ear of the public and the gift of speech, cannot be deprived of power so long as he keeps faith with the people and will not be made afraid. The future of the party, not in New Jersey alone, but in the notion, does depend on its keeping its pledges. For that party to-day, honesty is the best policy, courage is the best caution. If anybody doubts the wisdom of such leadership, let him consider how much stronger WOODROW WILSON himself is at this moment than he was during the campaign, brilliant and convincing as he was when he was making the pledges which he is now so steadfastly insisting upon keeping. Or consider why Democrats as well as Republicans are predicting that fhc next New York legislature will be Republican, while across the river Republicans as well as Democrats are expecting New Jersey to remain Democratic.

The Two Kinds of Democrats

Such leadership is not merely wise; it is essential. Nothing could be more shallow and absurd than the notion that because a party or a people is democratic it can dispense with leaders. The contrary comes much nearer being true. In order that democracy may truly prevail, in order that “the interests and legitimate demands of the people” may control the actual working of government. it is simply indispensable that there shall be leadership, and the franker and more open the leadership is, the more clearly its character and motive are defined, the better it will serve, because the better will be the opportunity of the public to express its will effectively.

Unquestionably there are two kinds of leadership offered to the Democratic party throughout the country at present, and a certain division in the party is indicated by the differing choice of different communities, different states and sections. To one group of lenders and their followers the term “progressive” is coming to be ‘not infrequently applied. It is not a good use of the word. That title belongs to one of the Republican factions. “Progressives” and “conservatives” are the correct names for the two wings of that party, and they are, in fact, for the two wings of the strong-government party in every self-governing country. For the two wings of the opposing party, the party of individual and local self-assertion, the party of liberty, the best general terms are “moderates” and “radicals.” But they do not perfectly fit the division, such as it is. among the Democrats in this country to-day. The alignment is too irregular. It is too much affected by sectional differences and also by the play of the same selfish special interests against which one of the Republican factions has revolted. “Thoroughgoing” and “half-hearted,” or merely “sincere” and “insincere,” would be, for the time being, rather more accurate designations of the two kinds of Democrats which the party contains and which are contending for control in the various states and in the nation. The contest is none the less real and important because it is confused, because the lines of it are ill-defined. Upon its outcome depends, of course, the control of the platform and nominations. But more than that is involved. The character and the aims of the party for many years to come are involved. The immediate future control of the government is involved. The fate of the other party also is involved, logically and directly involved, for if the Democrats fail to play their proper role the insurgent Republicans will essay it.

It is by making clear the choice open to all Democrats that such candid and courageous leadership as Governor WILSON’s is of so great, so inestimable service at the present juncture. In the other party other men are playing a part somewhat like his; but no other Democrat in the country is now making of his words and deeds - in fact, of his very name - quite such a touchstone of other men's Democracy.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, APRIL, 1911

The Problem, the Solution, and the Man

The fact that we live in an age of action, not of thought, is charged with more meaning for us than for those of older countries. They have as guides the beacon lights of their own histories, but the conditions confronting us are without precedent either at home or abroad. Hence the vital need of pausing at intervals in order that we may determine, so far as possible, whether we are being swept unrcsistingly along a torrent to certain doom or are gliding passively down the river of natural progress to a haven of peace, equality, and common happiness. So, while comforting our souls with the reflection that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come, it nevertheless behooves us, as a prudent people, to remedy artificial evils, which invariably have their genesis in want of thought, by the application of thought itself. The poet Lowell expressed the idea to homely perfection.

“I honor the man who is ready to sink

Half his present repute for the freedom to think;

And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,

Will sink t’other half for the freedom to speak.

Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,

Let that mob be the upper ten thousand, or lower.”

TARIFF AND REVENUE

What, then, is the one great problem upon whose solution depends the future of our country and our people? That, in a commercial age, it is economic goes without saying. That, in a sense, it is moral may be accepted as an obvious fact. Recent manifestations of the instinct of an alertminded people to seek and concentrate upon the concrete readily induce the suggestion that it is the tariff. But the tariff is not a problem. It is no more than a phase become a political issue. Whether imposts should be laid for revenue or protection is a question of importance, to be sure, but of far less importance than in former years when academic judgment outweighed practical considerations. It would be the height of folly to blind our eyes to the conditions that now exist and cannot be changed. We rightfully lament and condemn governmental extravagance, but none can deny that application of the most rigid economy would counterbalance but temporarily the increasing cost of administration of a rapidly growing commonwealth. Despite the enormous revenues now derived from various sources, each day adds two hundred thousand dollars to the deficit, and this sum would have been doubled by the enactment of the absurd pension law recently approved by the House of Representatives. We must, moreover, accept as a fact that actual needs will multiply rather than diminish.

How are these colossal sums to be obtained? By reducing the tariff to a revenue basis? In part, perhaps, but by no means to an extent sufficient to meet the requirements. Let us not deceive ourselves in this regard. No intelligent man now advocates the destruction of our great manufacturing industries through the adoption of free trade with other nations. The utmost that is sought is a lowering of excessive and prohibitive rates to a standard that would enable reasonable competition to kill monopoly. The effect would be a reduction in the cost of products to the consumers, and to that extent it would be beneficial. But, clearly, there would ensue no material increase in revenues unless the manufacturer were driven out of business entirely - an outcome contemplated and desired by no one. There is wellgrounded belief that manufacturing profits, as a rule, are excessive and should be brought within bounds to the advantage of the consumer, but since there is no thought of abolishing them altogether the industries will survive and prosper, though more moderately, and will continue to meet the market demands. It is idle, then, to anticipate any increase in revenues approaching adequacy from a lowering of the rates. The tariff, as we have said, is no more than a phase - a phase, indeed, of only a part of the real problem, because essential as the procurement of money for government undoubtedly is, it is as a bagatelle compared with the collateral results.

PARAMOUNT PROBLEM

The vital problem now confronting the people of the United States, the problem involving the perpetuity of free institutions, the problem which transcends all economic, political, and moral issues, is how to make equitable distribution of the combined earnings of labor and capital without rending the fabric of popular government. The apothegm of Ricardo, still upheld by certain powerful but short-sighted classes in England, to the effect that the laborer is entitled to just enough food and clothing to keep the machinery of his body working until it shall wear itself out, finds no adherents here. We have advanced at least far enough to recognize that humanity is a part, and a very large part, of political economy. But this is only a step. We have much farther to go to insure the supremacy of evolution over revolution as an effective force in the development of civilization. Our colossal fortunes have sprung into being so quickly that there has been hardly time to effect a readjustment of the relationship of Wealth to the State which conserves it, but no thoughtful mind can fail to appreciate that readjustment must be had and soon, not merely for the relief of Labor, but quite as much, if not more. for the protection of Capital itself. We cannot equalize fortunes. “When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind.” Nor would we, if we could, sound the death knell of individualism. But we can try to correct methods and influences which have produced great inequalities, and which, if unchecked, cannot fail to make the disparities yet more enormous. True it is that never before and nowhere else has Wealth been so sensible of its duties as it is now and here. It builds hospitals, libraries, schools and colleges without number, but such remedies serve only to palliate the disease. They do not extirpate the germs. The process, moreover, is artificial, discriminatory, and offensive to, if not indeed destructive of, the self-respect of the masses. Less charity and more justice is what the American people want and what they are entitled to receive.

INTERDEPENDENCE AND CO-OPERATION

That is the problem. Where lies the solution? Primarily in the spirit with which the subject is approached. Not independence, but interdependence, has become the law of life in this country. Co-operation, a drawing together in frank and unselfish tolerance of one another’s opinions, is positively essential to the settlement of every great question. And this concurrence must be general, must come not only from all groups, but from all sections. Invariably and naturally the older and richer community is the more conservative, the more reluctant to accept innovation, the more obtuse in recognizing either the equities or necessities of change. That the West does not appreciate the extent of its obligation to the East is apparent to the most casual observer, but no less manifest in the East’s obduracy in ignoring the teachings of the West. The historian, Woodrow Wilson, depicts with insight and accuracy “the moral of our history.”

“The East,” he writes, “has spent and been spent for the West: has given forth her energy, her young men and her substance for the new regions that have been a-making all the century through. But has she learned as much as she has taught or taken as much as she has given? The westward march has stopped upon the final slopes of the Pacific. Populations now turn upon their old paths, fill in the places they passed by as neglected in their first journey in search of a land of promise; settle to a life such as the East knows as well as the West—nay, much better. With the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and to be known: and the time has come for the East to learn in her turn; to broaden her understanding of political and economic conditions to the scale of a hemisphere. Let us be sure that we get the national temperament; send our minds abroad upon the continent, become neighbors to all the people that live upon it and lovers of them all.”

THE SOUTH AS TEACHER

This is the true spirit - the essence of patriotism indicative of the brotherhood of man. We need not dwell upon the West’s resentment against the East nor the East's distrust of the West. But we do know and must recognize that these unhappy sentiments have pervaded the two sections in the past and have not yet been wholly eradicated. The cure lies in better understanding, to be acquired through fuller acquaintanceship. The South is the natural arbiter because the South, revivified and prosperous, more philosophical as a consequence of enforced conditions, has become less dependent upon its sister sections than either the West or the East. By virtue of the genius for statesmanship and clear thinking which it developed in the early days, it was the leader for scores of years and should be the leader now.

Its duty is plain. Out of the happy outcome of its own patient sufferance it may well indicate to the impatient West the advantages to be derived from the exercise of tolerance. From its own bitter experience it can point out clearly to the East that, while great possessions may be lost temporarily to a community, that which a free people come to recognize as a vital truth can never die, that the test of a man’s strength and worth is not so much what he achieves as what he overcomes, that brawn weighs less than brain and brain less than character, that even from a selfish view-point it is easier to lift human beings up than to hold them down, and that the soundest security for property lies in interesting the largest number of individuals in its preservation and the smallest number in its destruction. Hence the value, the incalculable value to all, of equitable distribution of the combined earnings and accumulations of labor and capital.

How to obtain such apportionment is the question. Not by violence surely. The exercise of mere force, whether physical or legislative, is destructive, not creative, and at best can only clear the way for something different and probably worse. Not by decreeing a new system of government as one would order a new suit of clothes, for the simple reason that the tailor does not live and never has lived who could make it fit. And yet not by compromise of principle which has been aptly described as a good enough umbrella for politics, but a poor roof for statesmanship. It is quite as essential, in this land at this time, that our methods should be orderly as that our aims should be rational.

THE DIRECT TAX

May it not be that the remedy lies in direct taxation? Why not frankly acknowledge that our government can no longer be fed by those who have little and are constantly getting less, and must be supported by those who have much and are steadily acquiring more? Attempts have been made from time to time to impose adequate taxes upon incomes and inheritances. Some have been insincere; all for one reason or another have been abortive. Is it not now time to undertake the task with resolute determination to succeed? Can a better solution of our most vital problem be devised?

Advocacy of legislation making such imposition does not involve assault upon a class. It is not a contest of classes at all. It is no more or less than recognition of the natural rights of free men to establish a system under which all members of each present and succeeding generation shall possess substantially equal privileges. A tax upon incomes is not, as is so frequently said, a tax upon industry. It is rent of exceptional opportunity, a just payment for peculiar advantages levied in proportion to the gains derived from their exercise. And a tax upon inheritances is not a tax upon the earner, but upon the beneficiary who, having played no part in the making, should be willing to share his bequest with the state whose aid was essential to its acquiremcnt and whose protection continues to be requisite to its preservation.

We are accustomed to regard our very rich as broader and more generous-minded than the very rich of other lands, and we set forth in evidence their magnificent benefactions. But making big gifts is quite different from paying big taxes. The former not only gratifies vanity, but presumably paves the way to a place among the angels, while the latter merely discharges a just obligation; So we must expect that the opposition will continue as strong as ever, and that the usual arguments must be confuted in fairness and reason. But this is not difficult. There need be no question of double taxation and no antagonism between state and nation. Co-operation alone is essential. It is useless for a commonwealth to impose a tax which can be evaded by a mere change of residence. But the federal government can make such a tax general and conserve all state prerogatives by allowing a reduction equivalent to the amount paid under similar enactment to the state. The would-be dodger would then be compelled to leave the country to avoid bearing his fair share of the total burden. And the justice of the proposal is indicated by the fact that there is no civilized land from England to Italy to which he could go and obtain better terms than the highest we would think of exacting for the protection of his property.

RECIPROCITY

Other questions, other issues, there are, to be sure, but all are allied with and subordinate to that which is vital and fundamental. We have seen that governmental needs not only exceed present revenues, but must of necessity increase, along with growing population at home and multiplying responsibilities abroad. Clearly, under these conditions, other sources of income must be found before ordinary business prudence will permit the general lowering of tariff rates so much as a shade below the revenue basis. The pending reciprocity bill is a neighborly and commendable act, but none can deny that its practical effect will be a very considerable increase in the present deficit. Its espousal, then, by a responsible Administration, which fails to indicate simultaneously an alternative method of meeting the enhanced deficiency, is political rather than statesmanlike, a mere expedient to appease public wrath, not the inauguration of a policy which could be made general. Proper taxation of incomes and inheritances, however, would render the development possible, feasible, and greatly advantageous to the toiling masses.

THE ROOT OF DISCONTENT

No less direct is the relationship to our chief problem of all proposals to loosen the bonds of representative government by the substitution of primaries for conventions, by the election of Senators by popular vote, by adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall. The genesis of these questionable devices is the common and warrantable belief in the minds of the people that the poor bear burdens that should be borne by the rich, and that the failure, so far, of popular will to find expression through enactment of laws makes a change in the system itself essential to readjustment. The present trend toward pure democracy as a substitute for the government of delegated powers established by the Fathers is directly traceable to the obduracy of that alliance of Greed and Wealth which for so many years has controlled the dominant political party. Whether or not this revolutionary tendency is healthful is a question which need not now be considered. It suffices to point out the causes of its origin and growth - and these are manifest. Can any one believe that assaults upon the principle of representative government would ever have attained their present proportions but for the conviction in millions of minds that the many are being grossly discriminated against in favor of the few, especially in the matter of taxation, and that refusal to tax incomes and inheritances has been deliberate in order to make necessary for revenue purposes heavy imposts upon products essential to maintenance of very existence? There can be no question as to the root of the prevailing discontent, and there can be no doubt of the people’s full comprehension or of their firm determination to shift the burdens by prudent methods if possible, but by radical measures if necessary.

NO HOPE FROM THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Who is best equipped to meet the situation? One can perceive little ground for hope from the Republican party until it shall be put out of power and be kept out long enough to dissolve its accumulated special partnerships. However good the intentions of a Republican President and even a portion of a Republican Congress may be, recent history proves conclusively that they count practically for naught. The party is tied hand and foot, has made so many trades with all sorts from Mammon to Mormon, has accepted so many favors, has become so dependent upon the power of money, that it is utterly helpless to break its bonds. The Democratic party is inexperienced; it may be ignorant; it has yet to prove itself capable. But it is a fortuitous circumstance that nobody in recent years has considered it worth bribing. Consequently it is at least free, free to do its best without fear or favor, and, so being, should be preferred.

LIBERAL on CONSERVATIVE

Fifteen months hence the two leading candidates for President will be placed in nomination. One will be labeled Republican, the other Democratic. But the time has passed when a live issue can be raised bctween more appellations. The sharp line of demarcation once drawn between the two great organizations has worn away in the roaring loom of time. The reality will find one regarded by the people as a conservative and the other as a liberal or progressive. Assuming, as we may with reasonable certainty, the renomination of President Taft, but one question in practical politics will confront the Democratic convention. That will relate to the tendency of the great body of voters. Is it toward liberalism or conservatism? If the former, then clearly the Democrats, if wise, will name a man generally recognized as more progessive than Mr. Taft; if the latter. they will designate one regarded as less radical. The relative personal merits of proposed candidates will be weighed naturally and properly, but the final determination will or should be reached through a balancing of their respective tendencies. All will resolve to the making of the most effective contrast, the one way or the other, with the Republican nominee. It cannot be a difficult task. Mr. Taft occupies middle ground. He is a standpatter in so far as he pronounces the present tariff law the best ever enacted, and he is an insurgent in his advocacy of that trifling sop to the whale called reciprocity. Although sincerely in favor of improving the government, he is by no means a zealous reformer. His bent is mildly and slowly progressive - and yet sufficiently advanced to be regarded as liberal in contrast with an old-time conservative.

BACKWARD OR FORWARD?

The Democratic party, then, when the time comes to make a choice, will be at the parting of the ways. Which road shall it take? The old familiar path through the meadows, traveled in 1904 and leading presumably to stability and noninterference with things existing, or the new highroad to reform? Shall it wear the garment of the Old Democracy or don the fresh mantle of the New? Shall it face cautiously sidewise, even perhaps a trifle backward, or shall it raise its eyes fearlessly to the beacon light high up on the mountain-top? The question will be one of judgment no less than of right and all shades of opinion, from the reactionary views of Wall Street to the vagaries of Oregon, will merit consideration. But a careful diagnosis of the present temper of the people clearly indicate that, if an election were to be held to-morrow, a Democratic candidate regarded by the people as less progressive than President Taft would be defeated, and that a candidate generally recognized as being more progressive, more liberal, more radical, if you like, than President Taft would almost as surely win.

There need be no qualification of the first declaration because there appears no statesman answering that description whose intellectual and moral merits could be held to be in any way superior to those of President Taft; nor is there one whose powers of fascination are equal to those of our popular Chief Magistrate. There would be then no compensatory advantages, and the differentiation in policy would shape the result.

It does not follow, on the other hand, that any person reckoned as more progressive or liberal could win. Far from it. President Taft will be a strong and attractive candidate. He has amply demonstrated his good intentions, has fully proven his exceptional abilities, and is gradually developing notable capacity for true leadership. In opposition to him, irrespective of political tendencies, must be pitted a man equal in all respects except experience, equal in intellect, in courage, in loyalty to the Constitution, in understanding of democratic institutions, in nobility of character and purpose, in freedom from wrongful influence of class or section, in fidelity to the interests of all the people whose lives, liberties, prosperity, and happiness must be safeguarded and conserved by the great Republic which belongs to them and to them alone.

THE DEMOCRATIC FACTIONS

Grant that such an one be found. Can the Democratic party act as a unit? In four successive national elections one faction has defeated the other. Cleveland Democrats voted against Mr. Bryan, and Bryan Democrats did not vote for Mr. Parker. Do the differences which have eventuated thus fatally continue irreconcilable now when success seems almost within reach? What reason is there to believe that, left to themselves, the factions divided by the Alleghanies will coalesce without reserve? Can Eastern Democrats be induced to accord freely to Mr. Bryan the position, not of dictator, but of leader, which is rightfully his until the next candidate for President shall be named? Can Mr. Bryan be persuaded to desist from seeking truth in the well so constantly that his vision is circumscribed to his own image? Is a more tolerant, a more considerate, a more respectful attitude on both sides within the range of possible attainment?

Candor demands the admission that Eastern Democrats have been unjust to Mr. Bryan. To disavow what is honestly believed to be a false doctrine, even to oppose a policy regarded as fatal or wrong, may be and often is a consciencious duty. But to question a man’s sincerity, to insinuate sordid motives, to discredit his purposes without cause or proof, is only to invite just resentment and swift retribution. It is not surprising that Mr. Bryan should still consider the seaboard metropolis, if not the enemy’s country, at least as unfairly inimical.

MR. BRYAN AND THE EAST

But the East has no monopoly of wilful uncharitableness. When Mr. Bryan declares that any possible candidacy supported by the New York World, the New York Times, and HARPER’S WEEKLY “must be viewed with suspicion” he implies much that he must know to be unwarranted. Surely he must be aware that many years before he himself became a public character Joseph Pulitzer began a warfare upon plutocracy which has been continued unwaveringly and unceasingly. If ever there was a public journal of proven independence and unsusceptibility to wrongful influence everybody knows that the New York World is that newspaper. Nor can Mr. Bryan be ignorant of the consistently high-minded and conscientious course of the New York Times. Of HARPER’S WEEKLY it suffices to say that the only man whose advice with respect to shaping its policy its present editor has ever sought or received is William Jennings Bryan. True, there have arisen differences of opinion, but Mr. Bryan has no reason whatever to assert that the views of those journals have been one whit less honest or less rightfully intentioned than his own, whose perfect sincerity may be granted. No fair-minded person can withhold admiration of Mr. Bryan’s amazing prescience of popular tendencies, but events have seemed to demonstrate that, in a practical sense, it is no less fatal to be too far ahead of the procession than to linger too far behind. The time may come when the people will demand prohibition, for example, or government ownership, or initiative, referendum, and recall, but that time seemingly is not yet. Consequently, from motives of policy no less than of principle we suppose we should again differ with Mr. Bryan; but even so, should disagreement upon mere side issues be permitted to prevent unison in upholding fundamental truth?

Herein lies the opportunity of the unbiased, uncommitted South, the mother of Democracy - to act not merely as umpire between these two factions, but to take the lead, to insist that resentments so ancient as to have become childish be buried, to demand from both greater consideration, more respect for and greater faith in one another, and to make it perfectly clear that manifestations of churlishness by either will meet with stem and effective rebuke.

THE MAN

Let the apportionment of responsibilities be even. The West has furnished the party, as well as the opposition, with the majority, though not the greatest, of its issues. The South is to enforce harmony and amalgamation. The East presents the man - Woodrow Wilson, the highly Americanized Scotch-Irishman, descended from Ohio, born in Virginia, developed in Maryland, married in Georgia, and now delivering from political bondage the state of New Jersey.

Great occasions find great men. Here is one who, if he had lived in the days of Jefferson and Madison, would have rivaled the one as a champion of the people, and would have equaled the other in comprehension and lucid expression of fundamental law. No other living personality so happily combines the dominant traits of those two great statesmen; no other has evidenced so perfect a blending of profound knowledge and simple devotion to humanity; no other has shown so clearly how quickly the old truths will spring into new light and power when touched by the magic wand of full sincerity; no other more surely embodies the authority of sustained thought, of unremitting labor for unselfish ends, the spirit of sacrifice and devotion, the instinct of independence, the love of perfect freedom. Born a polemic and controversialist, intellectually combative and self-reliant; fearless to the verge of temerity; indifferent to applause or censure for its own sake; incapable of intrigue; prompt to accept conclusions based upon right versus wrong without inquiring or caring whether they be politic or even expedient; persuasive in oratory, but devoid of artifice; too intent, too earnest to employ cheap and paltry devices; his pockets filled with moral dynamite; his every thought springing from knowledge that all of the basic principles in our political order, including conservatism, emerged from the well of the most radical democracy, and that democracy itself is only letting in light and air; at the height of his powers of intellect and judgment; upon the high plateau of middle life, best adapted to noble and enduring achievement, stands the man, the liberal, the progressive, the radical, if you will, wide-eyed, open-minded, calm, resolute, exact in thought, effective in action, the most vivid and virile personality, save one, developed on American soil in half a century. Such, without exaggeration or undue emphasis, is Woodrow Wilson.

The old South has bred great statesmen from the beginning of the Republic. To her greatest, the peerless son of Virginia, we owe the political emancipation of the people from oligarchical rule and the establishment of the political party which has survived the assaults of a century. Now let the new South give to the new Democracy another true leader, armed with the power of his faith in the people and their faith in him, and the quickened spirit which enabled Jefferson to break the bonds of paternalism will again become the glory of the nation.

THE EDITOR.

APRIL 8, 1911

The Voice of the People

Apparently Woodrow Wilson is to be the next President if it requires the leading article in every number of “The North American Review” from now until November of 1912. Last month his qualifications were demonstrated in a tubular comparison that left his hypothetical opponents without a statistical leg to stand on. Now we have an analysis of “The Problem, the Solution, and the Man” which, if less mathematical, is as convincingly antithetical as ever, with its climax of “the highly Americanized Scotch-Irishman, descended from Ohio, born in Virginia, developed in Maryland, married in Georgia, and now delivering from political bondage the state of New Jersey.” -New York “Evening Post.”

“VERY CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE”

From the Savannah "News”

Colonel George Harvey, who was one of the speakers at the Hibernian banquet last night, is strongly wedded to the idea that Governor Wilson is the logical candidate of the Democratic party for President. He expressed that idea, in an interview yesterday, and he also believes that the Democratic party isn't going to do an thing in the direction of reforming the tariff that wil greatly disturb the business of the country. He has confidence in the Ways and Means Committee that has been named, especially in Mr. Underwood, its chairman. That doesn’t mean, we take it, that the Democrats are not going to so reform the tariff that it will be satisfactory to the people. It simply means that they have a clear appreciation of their responsibility and that they will act with care and caution.

It seems to us that Governor Wilson stands an excellent chance of being the Democratic nominee for President. He has made a record since he entered the political field as a spokesman of the party. His achievement in his campaign for Governor of New Jersey gave him a place among the very ablest of the Democratic leaders and showed him to be a progressive without being a radical putting out new theories which do not appeal to the common sense of the people.

Naturally here in the South there is a very kindly feeling for Governor Wilson, since he is a Southerner. We have been talking of the advisability of naming a Southern man for President for a number of years. The time for doing that seems to have arrived. Sectional feeling has practically disappeared and Southern men are in the really prominent positions in the House of Representatives or will be as soon as Congress assembles in extra session. We have all along contended that the North would give a. Southern man a warmer support for President than a Northern man simply to prove that sectionalism in that section was dead, if for no other reason. Governor Wilson meets the Democratic demand in practically every particular - at least it so seems in this part of the country. In the West the sentiment may not be as kindly to Governor Wilson as it is to Governor Harmon and Mr. Champ Clark, but the question, after all, when the convention meets will be, which stands the best chance of being elected?

Mr. Bryan was regarded as a wonderful campaigner, and much of the large vote he received in each of his Presidential campaigns was due to his personal efforts on the stump. It is doubtful, however, if he is as good a vote-getter as Governor Wilson proved himself to be in his New Jersey campaign. Governor Wilson in that campaign got very close to the people, and he would do the same thing if named by the Democrats for President. It is among the probabilities that 1912 will see a Southern man named for President.

SAVANNAH IS SATISFIED

From the Savannah “Press”

“The political prognostication in which Colonel George Harvey, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY, indulges in an article in The North American Review is most interesting. The conclusion at which he arrives is that Mr. Taft; will almost certainly be renominated next year and that his renomination will force the nomination of Woodrow Wilson by the Democrats.” -Americas “Times Recorder."

This suits us. Both candidates, if we may call them that, were in Atlanta last week and spoke from the same platform in the auditorium. Each made a good speech, for both men had a message to deliver. It is the consensus of opinion in Georgia that Woodrow Wilson is one of the most accomplished and statesman-like men in the country. He was followed around in Atlanta by crowds all the time. He had to make about three speeches a day and yet did not trifle with his opportunities. He is not a mere hand-shaker. He spoke under every possible condition. He did not deal in dcmagoguery or claptrap. He addressed the Young Men's Democratic League: he foregathered with the Princeton Alumni. He was jumped up in the lobby of the Piedmont and placed upon a table; he re sponded to the call of Governor Hoke Smith at a little banquet given in his honor, and, lastly, he spoke before seven thousand people in the auditorium, where he was followed by President Taft.

Governor Wilson, of course, is partly Georgian and received ovations everywhere he went. He stayed in Atlanta just forty-eight hours and was crowded with attentions and won a large following. He proved the truth of his own statement, and when the people are convinced that you are sincere in the desire to render them public service “they will follow you in inconvenient numbers.” Governor Wilson had to get up early and speak late to meet all the demands made upon him in Atlanta. He is a great student, a close thinker, a careful speaker, a man who holds the confidence of the people, and will be a quantity to be reckoned with when a candidate for President is chosen next year.

He gets right down to the people in his public discussions. He is not pedantic or obscure. He talks in an easy, natural vein, and he is the most unique and striking figure in public life to-day. We agree with Colonel George Harvey once more.

“Woodrow Wilson is hailed as the Knight Errant of the new Democracy, and as such will be nominated in opposition to William H. Taft.”

LOYAL, INTELLIGENT, PATRIOTIC

From the Portland (Indiana) “Commercial”

We have no knowledge, of course, regarding the measure of enthusiasm that will follow tlie-nomination of Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, for the Presidency by Colonel George Harvey, but we regard the Savannah speech in which Colonel Harvey placed his favorite before the people of the South as one of the most adroit and at the same time finished productions in favor of a candidate that we have ever read. The sponsor for Governor Wilson's candidacy is certainly an enthusiast, and being in a position as editor of The North American Review to wield a large influence over the people, it is not improbable that his utterances may ar fruit for his favorite even as they are now awakening a great deal of very earnest discussion. Perhaps it is a little early to start Presidential booms, for there is danger of them being punctured before the nominating convention meets a year hence, and yet there is a great deal in getting the people to thinking that when they come to act, they may act with intelligence and discrimination.

What Colonel Harvey has said has the merit of being free from partisan feeling, if we judge him by his words, for the Savannah speech throughout is a strong and dispassionate appeal to reason. Every one knows that the Democrats have for years been rent asunder by factions. Bryan was defeated largely by the votes of the East. Parker, though weak everywhere, was notably weak in the West. Bryan’s strength was in the territory of Parker's reatest weakness, and Parker's strength was among the men who had done most to bring about a miscarriage of Bryan’s candidates. The South was true both to Bryan and Parker, not, perhaps, because it loved either very greatly, but because the negro question, always acute in that section, would make her loyal to any ticket that the Democracy would make. And because of this loyalty she is in a position to act as arbiter between the Democratic factions of the East and the West, and bring both sections with her to an honest and undivided support of a candidate who cannot be said to be an Easterner or a Westerner or a Southerner, but so cosmopolitan that he combines the loyalty, the intelligence, and the patriotism of them all.

Colonel Harvey’s description of his candidate is not only unique, but it constitutes a literary gem that is well worth reading.

THE LAW OF LOGIC ESTABLISHED

From the Galveston “News”

The North American Review for March has a most interesting and searching argument byvits editor intended to prove that Dr. Woodrow Wilson, who is just now engaged in bringing about ‘the political regeneration of New Jersey, is predestined to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency next year. The argument is founded chiefly on the postulate “that the laws of logic, growing out of conditions and circumstances, are irrefragable as applied to human affairs,” which, translated, means that even politicians must yield somewhat to the logic of events.

The antithesis between Taft and Wilson is proved, and if the laws of logic “are irrefragable” even by political conventions, the nomination of Dr. Wilson would seem to be predestined indeed, unless some one better fitting the logic of events should rise above the horizon during the next year. The editor of The North American Review finds, by searching the political history of the country for the last half-century, that the law of logic does require that the two opposing parties shall nominate men who are in essential respects antithetical of each other, and that the party which picks its nominee last must be governed by the political character and personality of the man picked by its adversary. A single instance will at once illustrate and somewhat support the idea: When the Republicans nominated McKinley, a conservative, the democrats nominated Bryan, a radical; when the Republicans nominated Roosevelt, a radical, the Democrats equally faced about by nominating Parker, a conservative.

The law seems pretty well proven by this appeal to history, and that Taft and Harmon are alike in more respects than they are unlike is pretty conclusively shown by the analysis. The nomination of Taft by the Republicans assured, the nomination of Harmon by the Democratic party would make it the exponent of stand-patism, and the Republican party the exponent of cautious progressivism; whereas the nomination of Wilson would make the Democratic party the exponent of intelligent radicalism. Thus the Democrats have in these two men excellent material with which to personify whichever attitude they wish to assume toward the political problems of the time, though in choosing they must take into account the very strong probability that if two men so nearly alike as Taft and Harmon should be nominated, the progressive Republicans will put forth a nominee who will appeal to the radical elements in both parties, and tend to concentrate the stand-patters on Taft.

There is no reason why the Democrats should act without foreseeing the full consequences of their act.

MANY CALLED, BUT FEW CHOSEN

From the New Orleans “Picayune"

The nomination and election of a President of the United States do not occur until more than a year away, and the people at large are not troubling themselves on the subject in advance, and nobody is anxious about what may happen in the premises except the candidates in expectation, whoever they may be. The party nominations will be made in June or July of 1912, and the election will be held in November of that year, so that there is plenty of time in which conditions that will control may shape themselves.

George Harvey, in the March North American Review, has foreseen all that is predestined in those nominations, and he undertakes to tell how it is going to be. Gazing into the future, he sees that President Taft will be the Republican nominee and Woodrow Wilson the Democratic candidate.

Taft is an avowed candidate. He controls the federal patronage. This is all that can be said in his favor. He started out to be immensely popular, but he destroyed it all by playing into the hands of the tariff-raisers. He was charged with having been an active agent in vastly increasing the expenses of living for the masses of the people in order to ut more money in the already plethoric pockets of t e manufacturing monopolies and trusts. He split the Republican party into the regulars or stand-patters on the one side and the insurgents or low-tariff progressionists on the other. No other President so rapidly destroyed the popularity with which he first set out, and it was not a popularit he had won by his services, but it was a friendly eeling that had been bestowed upon him because he seemed to be such a good fellow.

But all that is gone, and he has no hold on the people whatever. Save where by some bargain and sale, like his deal with the Pacific coast states in the matter of the Panama Exposition, Mr. Taft has no following in any part of the country. Even the people whose hearts he gained in Georgia by eating “possum” dinners with them care for him no longer, but even if they did they could do his campaign no good because Georgia is a Democratic state. In calling a Democratic Congress into special session he will ruin all his chances with the stand-patters, who will be enraged at seeing their tariff broken up by the free traders, and the disturbances that will unsettle business all over the country will carry capital and the commercial classes against him.

Then there is Roosevelt. He is starting out on a new political campaign, not so much to set forth his special doctrines as to look over the situation, and he may prove to be a big thorn in the side of the candidate for re-election. Roosevelt’s influence was a large factor in Taft’s election, and in return for Taft’s abandonment of all the Roosevelt policies the Colonel will see to it that the President shall not be renominated.

On the Democratic side there are Mayor Gaynor of New York City, Governor Harmon of Ohio, and Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Each has his admirers, but not one of them has a national reputation gained through great public services. They are to a great extent beginners who have not been proved as to statesmanship. We will know more about them by June, 1912. They will then have had time to develop.

NO POPULISM, NO SOCIALISM

From the Jacksonville “Times-Union”

Colonel George Harvey sees in the next campaign the West furnishing the Democratic party with a majority of the issues, the South enforcing harmony and amalgamation, and the East furnishing the candidate in the person of Woodrow Wilson. Colonel Harvey selects Governor Wilson on the idea that he is more progressive, more liberal, and more radical than President Taft.

We do not believe the South will accept the role Colonel Harvey assigns. Colonel Harvey may not know it, but there are men south of Mason and Dixon’s line who have ideas and stand by them, who think for themselves and are not sending West for their views.

The Democratic party is almost certain to win the next political fight. Its chief danger lies in the fact that it may cease to be the Democratic party. If it abandons Democratic principles or hides them under a lot of Populistic or Socialistic rubbish, the party will again go down in defeat and ought to go down in defeat.

There are a number of men now who seem to think that it is incumbent on them to make political parties out of a number of political principles thrown down in a promiscuous heap. They do not seem to realize that the Democratic party was made before they were born. So far as theory of government is concerned, the Democratic party has always insisted on a strict construction of the Constitution, the rights of the states to self-government, except where they have explicitly surrendered their rights for defense against a common enemy. In economic matters the party has always stood for equal justice to all and special favors to none, It is and has always been opposed to a high protective tariff.

All the men who call themselves Democrats agree on these principles and on the tariff, the one question that new demands immediate settlement. If the Democrats will make a fight for tariff reform and for nothing else they will win.

Those who insist on adding Populistic or Socialistic principles will, if they succeed, add only discord, and we do not think the South will sit tamely by and submit to the incorporation of these elements of discord into the platform. In 1912 a Democrat or a Republican will be elected President. Socialism may triumph at some time in the future, but if it does it should be through the election of a Socialist calling himself a Socialist. We do not wish to see any man go up to be inaugurated clothed with stolen goods.

MAKE ROOM FOR POLITICIANS

From the Indianapolis “News”

As Colonel Harvey is, we believe, the original Woodrow Wilson man, it is not surprising that he should already see the New Jersey Governor as good as nominated. The Harvey dreams have been so wonderfully fulfilled up to date that one cannot marvel that Harvey should think that everything he dreams is going to come true. But really his interesting discussion of next year’s nominations in the current North American is far enough from being convincing. It is based on the theory that the second party in the field always chooses a man who is antithetical to the candidate first chosen - that, indeed, it is compelled to do this. Here is the statement of the theory:

"Logic predestines antithesis. Circumstances, conditions, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, demand it. History decrees it. Invariably the opposing candidate has been named, not by the opposition itself, but by the party taking the lead - in all but three instances by the party in power."

So if Mr. Taft is renominated by the Republicans - and this is taken for granted - there will be no reason for the Democratic convention to meet at all, as Wilson will already have been nominated. The Republicans are to nominate both candidates. This seems to be carrying predestination a good way. . . .

The premises are unsound, the facts awry, the conclusions do not follow. We agree that Governor Wilson has an excellent chance for the nomination, and agree, too, that he would make an admirable candidate. But that the job is already done we do not believe. There is nothing in the record appealed to that sustains the theory or that “points unerringly” to the nomination of Governor Wilson. The theory is itself without foundations, as our history shows. Conservatives have more than once been nominated by both parties, as in the case of Cleveland and Harrison and in that of Hayes and Tilden. National conventions are not so completely overruled by fate. We must leave some place for the dickering and manipulations of the politicians, for these are factors that cannot be neglected.

THE MOST LIKELY NOMINEE

From the Syracuse "Post-Standard"

Colonel George Harvey is a wise man. He knows the political history of the country, he knows present political conditions pretty well, he knows public men. Fixing his telescope upon 1912, he sees the candidates so clearly that he recognizes them. It is to be William H. Taft against Woodrow Wilson, says the Colonel, you can bank on it.

The Colonel said it in a St. Patrick's Day speech, but he said it before in The North American Review, and he says it hebdominally in his picture paper. He is so sure of what’s coming that he can figure it out by historical analogy, by rule of political necessity, or by reductio ad absurdum.

The Colonel gives his reasons and they are as convincing as reasons given fifteen months ahead of the convention usually are. He says that Mr. Taft has gained greatly in public estimation in a year, that he is now generally recognized as of exceptional ability, and that he is developing qualities of real leadership. Mr. Taft is a great man, says the Colonel, deserving renomination, and entitled to have as opponent the best the Democratic part has to offer.

Colonel Harvey is right. Mr. Taft will be renominated. It does not now seem probable that there will be a national movement against him. The opposition will be local to states having political leaders out of sympathy with him, Bourne of Oregon, La Follette of Wisconsin, perhaps Cummins of Iowa.

Against Mr. Taft, Colonel Harvey pits Woodrow Wilson, who, he says, rivals Jefferson as champion of the people and Madison in his lucid expression of fundamental principles. Colonel Harvey has been the friend, fellow-philosopher, and political guide of Dr. Wilson, as well as the publisher of his books. His enthusiasm is halcyon. But one doesn't have to accept all Colonel Harvey’s adjectives to admit that Dr. Wilson is to-day a more engaging Presidential candidate than Judson Harmon, who is likely to be his principal competitor. He is more likely to be nominated than any other man.

CONDITIONS MAY CHANGE

From the Paducah (Kentucky) “News Democrat”

Colonel Harvey has always been looked upon as an authority when he assumes the role of a political prognosticator; his latest look into the future, therefore, will be at least interesting. In a recent article in The North American Review he makes the prediction that Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, will be the standard-bearer of the Democratic party in 1912 and declares that the logic of events points unmistakably to his nomination for that honor. President Taft, he says, will be renominated, because it would be unprecedented for the Republican party to rei use him the nomination, and also because he has closed the first half of his administration with more favor than he closed the first year and with the prospect of gaining rather than losing the support of his party.

In view of the fact that President Taft is a conservative official, Colonel Harvey argues the Democrats must oppose him by nominating a radical, and in his judgment Governor Wilson is the right sort of a radical to nominate.

Colonel Harvey is a little previous in his predictions, and as it is a long time until the 1912 campaign and many conditions may arise ere then, no one as we see it can accurately foretell the outcome.

BRYAN AND PREDESTINATION

From the Portland “Oregonian”

Colonel George Harvey, who dragged Woodrow Wilson from the scholastic obscurity of Princeton into the bright white light of his present political glory, discusses brilliantly in the current North American Review the “political predestination” of the Governor of New Jersey. Professor Wilson is fortunate in having a press agent of the persuasive powers and prophetic instinct of Colonel Harvey; for has not that journalistic genius pointed out in advance each step in the forward march of the professor in his new career? The “political predestination” of Professor Wilson, in the terms of his authorized and inspired biographer, “guided by logic, circumstances, conditions, and history,” is to be the Democratic nominee for President in 1912.

Editor Harvey proves by appeals to history that every Republican candidate for President is opposed through the operation of fixed and inevitable political causes by a Democratic candidate of strongly contrasted characteristics. Therefore, since Taft - in the Harvey opinion - is to be renominated, it is incumbent on the Democrats to find his antithesis. Who is he?

Wilson is the real “antithesis” because he is lithe and sinewy in figure, eloquent of speech, a radical Tilden Democrat, hails from the East and South, and is imaginative, profound, and uncompromising. It may be agreed that the Wilson eulogist has here described a type fairly opposed to Taft; but he has failed to mention the one potent and final reason why Governor Harmon will not be the Democratic nominee, and Wilson is likely to be. It is that Colonel Bryan has in the Commoner distinctly voiced his hostility to Harmon, and he is probably friendly to Wilson.

Logic, circumstances, conditions, and history may have much to say about the naming of the next Democratic Presidential candidate; but Bryan will have more to say.

ENTITLED TO A GUESS

From the New Haven “Union”

Since he predicted the result of last fall’s election with substantial correctness, Editor Harvey has taken on some laurels as a prophet. The worst slap, however, which has yet been given to Governor Wilson’s name as a Presidential possibility is the prediction of Brother Harvey, acting as it does in the nature of an endorsement. We are quite certain that the rank and file of the Democratic party does not want the sort of leadership that Editor Harvey would endorse.

Aside, however, from Brother Harvey’s opinion, and such significance as it carries, it must be admitted that Woodrow Wilson is certainly a ossible Democratic nominee for President in l9l2. here are, however, Champ Clark and Joseph Folk and Mayor Gaynor and Judge Harmon and some others to be considered. Nineteen-twelve is yet too far away for one to worry over this matter. Brother Harvey, nevertheless, is entitled to his guess.

In these columns last month we summarized the arguments by which The North American Review made the Hon. Woodrow Wilson out the “man of destiny” in matters Presidential. This month the Review comes to bat again with another “leader” upon “The Problem, the Solution, and the Man,” in which Governor Wilson is extolled as “the highly Americanized Scotch-Irishman, descended from Ohio, born in Virginia, developed in Maryland, married in Georgia, and now delivering from bondage the state of New Jersey.” Somehow this categorical raise seems designed to bring Mr. Wilson under the Interstate Commerce Act, but such is not its author’s object. Colonel Harvey evidently intends that Governor Wilson shall be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency, even if it takes up all the space in his zinc from now to the Democratic national convention of 1912. It's a new kind of steam-roller. How will it work? -Chicago “Evening Post.”

It is understood by Iowa Democrats from press despatches concerning Mr. Harvey’s speech that ovations of peace are made to all factions of the Democratic party and a purposed gathering of all forces on a new issue for the campaign of 1912. The speaker pointed out that the wide-spread demands for reforms, such as election of United States Senator by direct vote, the initiative and referendum, etc., is a cry rising because of diseased economic conditions, which he claims could not be remedied by the adoption of all these. He urges to strike at what seems to be the cause of all the discontent, the unequal distribution of wealth, and as a remedy he proposes the adoption of a heavy national inheritance tax. This, Iowa Democrats take it, will be the great Democratic slogan during the next campaign.

The expression of Democrats in the Iowa legislature concerning Woodrow Wilson are very complimentary. -Keokuk “Democrat.”

Governor Harmon of Ohio, Governor Marshall of Indiana, Speaker Beauchamp Clark of Missouri, and other Democratic eligibles who have but a single state to stand sponsor for them before the next Democratic national convention, must look to their laurels. George Harvey, as the John the Baptist of the Wilson boom, has them all blanketed in his pronunciamento for his favorite candidate. “Descended from Ohio, born in Virginia, developed in Maryland, married in Georgia, and now delivering from political bondage the state of New Jersey,” Governor Wilson may claim distinction in the role of the favorite son which is to be envied. And before the date of the convention it may be that other antecedents, direct or collateral, may be discovered by which New England. New York, or possibly some other states in the West and South may be annexed to this long roll of interstate forebears. -Philadelphia “Bulletin."

Colonel George Harvey, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY and of The North American Review, unburdened his mind on the Presidential situation before a Southern audience at Savannah, Georgia, on St. Patrick’s Day. Colonel Harvey is a Democrat, and was in the South coaching the candidacy of Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, who for six years, at least, has been the editor's ideal for a Democratic candidate. Colonel Harvey’s speech was as significant for the tribute he incidentally paid to President Taft as for his eloquent advocacy of the nomination of Woodrow Wilson.

There is a note of doubt and anxiety in Colonel Harvey’s address when he speaks of what the Democracy may do. It is clear that he hasn’t faith that his party will select the best man, and with anything but the best pitted against President Taft he is sure the Democracy hasn’t any show. -Minneapolis “Journal.”

Colonel George Harvey shows that Woodrow Wilson is a Scotch-Irishman, an Ohioan, a Virginian, a Marylander, a Georgian, and a Jersey man, and therefore is likely to appeal to a strong following because of what may be called local sympathy; but all these attributes are as nothing compared with the fact that Woodrow Wilson is a clear-headed, bold, and honest thinker, and stands four-square for what he believes to be the rights and interests of the people. It is this character that will make him the universal choice. People do not ask where he hails from, but what he is; and knowing what he is, they will ask him to serve them. -Mobile “ Register.”

Governor Wilson is beyond question an attractive candidate. He has a wide view, is an excellent historical student, has delved deep into the science of government, has successfully conducted an important and growing university, has beaten an experienced political leader “ to a frazzle,” and has made an impression of personal forcefulness far beyond the borders of his state. Whether he would be acceptable to the Old Guard in New York, for example, remains to be seen; but Colonel Harvey may have the satisfaction of knowing that his candidacy is well regarded by many thousands of his fellow-couiitrymen.—Providencc “ Journal."

Editor Harvey, of HARPER'S WEEKLY and The North American Review, has been making speeches in the South in favor of Governor Wilson’s nomination for the Presidency. It should be easy plowing in that land. The South has ever been susceptible to appeals for its sons, and Governor Wilson’s eloquence and his fondness for discussion of constitutional questions fill the Southern ideal of statesmanship. It may be said that Colonel Harvey’s advocacy down there carries more weight than it does in New Jersey, but the energy of his campaigning is likely to have its effect everywhere. -Newark Sunday Call.

Colonel Harvey, in comparing President Taft and Governor Wilson of New Jersey, says: “Taft is prudent, Wilson is daring; in intellect Taft is capacious, Wilson keen, imaginative; Taft has wide, while Wilson has profound, knowledge. Taft’s diction is fair, while Wilson’s is fine. Taft’s tendency is mildly progressive, while Wilson’s is intelligenty radical. Taft’s character is pure, Wilson’s luminous. Taft’s convictions are constant, Wilson’s immovable.” Why not nominate and elect them both. They seem a good pair to draw to if Colonel Harvey is correct in his diagnosis. -Norfolk News.

Colonel Harvey did not mention Governor Harmon of Ohio, but his dark references to the impolicy of the Democrats having a candidate less progressive than President Taft suggest that thought of Governor Harmon was not altogether absent from his mind. In view of the fact that Colonel Harvey rent the welkin with his shouts against Colonel Roosevelt, his present analysis of Democratic opportunity and duty, and his willingness to snuggle up to Colonel Bryan as an anti-Harmonite, present a moving spectacle. -New York Globe.

Futurity betting is always at long odds. When a horseman backs a new-born colt to win a two-year-old event two years in the future the bookmakers always are willing to give him a bargain. A sport who now places a little coin at long odds on Taft and Wilson to win the two convention handicaps in 1912 might lose his money. But the indication is that he would at least get a run for it. There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the dope on which Colonel Harvey’s “tip” is based. -Sioux City Journal.

Colonel George Harvey’s advocacy of Governor Woodrow Wilson for the Democratic Presidential nomination is fairly sublime in its absolute committal. There can be no possible retraction; the Colonel has let go all bolts. Seldom did any man ever bind himself so completely to what any other might do or say. We, too, think very highly of Governor Wilson, and trust that there will be no cause for repentance on Colonel Harvey’s part. -Charlotte Observer.

Colonel Harvey argues that as between Wilson and Harmon, the only two he recognizes as serious candidates for the nomination, Wilson will be preferred. We believe, however, that the Colonel, after a sober second thought, will admit that many things may happen in the next year to change his point of view. It is too early to groom candidates or to make predictions. -New Orleans States.

It must be remembered that Colonel Harvey was the man who prophesied the nomination and election of Taft months before those eventualities occurred, and when Root was the most-talked-of candidate. He, at least, is not afraid of losing his reputation as a prophet and Governor Wilson is fortunate in having so stanch an ally. New Orleans Item.

The analysis is not just to Harmon: however, granting the writer's premises, it’s difficult to avoid his conclusion. But whether it shall be Harmon or Wilson with Taft for the opponent, it matters not which party shall prevail. we can all join Colonel Harvey in the exclamation with which he concludes “Blessed Columbia!" -Youngstown Vindicator.

Editor Harvey of The North American Review has not impressed the New Haven Union very deeply with his argument to prove that Woodrow Wilson is the "predestinated” Democratic Presidential candidate, but it will admit that he has given us a “new line of political dope.” -Waterbury American.

There may be no significance in the fact that Colonel Harvey's utterances follow closely after the friendly expressions of William J. Bryan. But it is certain that Governor Wilson is more prominently in the spotlight at present than any other Democratic "possibility." -New Britain Register.

Colonel Harvey, of HARPER'S WEEKLY, predicts that Woodrow Wilson is the coming man for resident on the Democratic ticket, and it is the Colonel's proud boast that no political prophecy he ever made failed of fulfilment. -Paterson Guardian.

"Col. George Harvey booms Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency?" Pshaw! That's no news. That was a foregone conclusion before Dr. Wilson was so much as nominated for Governor of New Jersey. -New York Tribune

About the only thing Col. George Harvey hasn't done in the way of electing Governor Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency is to announce the exact vote in the electoral college. -Columbus Journal.

We expect the renomination and re-election of President Taft, but we think Colonel Harvey has named the strongest man that the Democrats could nominate against him. -Rochester Post-Express.

MAY 13, 1911

A Distinction with a Difference

Speaking in Kansas City last week, Governor WOODROW WILSON defined his position on initiative, referendum, and recall in these words:

If we felt that we had genuine representative government in our state legislatures no one would piopose the initiative or rcferemliim in America. The most ardent and successful advocates of the initiative and referendum regard them as a sobering means of obtaining genuine representative action on the part of legislative bodies. They do not mean to set anything aside. They mean to restore and influence, rather.

The recall is a means of administrative control. If properly regulated and devised it is a means of restoring to administrative oflicinls what the initiative and referendum restore to legislators - namely, a sense of direct responsibility to the people who choose them.

The recall of judges, is another matter. Judges are not lawmakers. They are not administrators. Their duty is not to determine what the law shall be, but to determine what the law is. Their independence, their sense of dignity and of freedom, is of the first consequence to the stability of the state. To apply to them the principle of the recall is to set up the idea that determinations of what the law is must respond to popular impulse and to popular judgment.

It is sufficient that the people should have the power to change the law when they will. It is not necessary that they should directly influence by threat of recall those who merely interpret the law already established. The importance and desirability of the recall as a means of administrative control ought not to be obscured by drawing it into this other and very different field.

A more effective combination of clear thinking and lucid expression could hardly be imagined. The utterance, moreover, possesses peculiar importance because it is more than likely to be that of the Democratic national convention of 1912.

MAY 27, 1911

Getting Acquainted with Governor Wilson

In the West Governor WILSON now appears to be far and away the most popular Democrat in the United States. . . . The Governor has not avowed himself a Presidential candidate. It is far away from his thoughts to indulge such an aspiration. He is merely seeing the country. But one of the special correspondents traveling with him reported, after the Colorado experience, that he has been accepted as a candidate “at every point that he has visited since leaving Princeton on May 3d, and it is no exaggeration to say that the expressions of public esteem which have been accorded him make it clear that he is the man whom the West regards as being the Moses to lead the Democratic party to victory in 1912.” -Springfield Republican.

All right, except that Brother BRYAN is the only authentic Democratic MOSES, and we can’t sit still and see anybody try to deprive him of that well-earned title. MOSES, it will be recalled, wandered faithfully with the people a long time in the wilderness and stood by them through considerable foolishness, but because of some mistakes he had made did not lead them to victory nor himself enter the Promised Land. It is a JOSHUA that the Democrats are now looking for, a man “full of the spirit of wisdom.” It is a JOSHUA that the Western Democrats think they have found.

HARPER'S WEEKLY has again achieved an editorial page which exerts the influence and power which resided there in the days of GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Its rigor and brilliancy are features of the journalism of the day. -THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE

We Smooth Out Wrinkles

Our amiable neighbor, the Sun, we are pained and surprised to observe, is beginning to manifest symptoms of disapproval of the conduct and sayings of Governor WOODROW WILSON. It began to nag him as soon as he started off on a short vacation to get acquainted with the folks out west, and it seems likely to continue the practice with a persistence that has become characteristic, if not indeed unique. It now calls him “the Governor Itinerant” who, “swallowing the recall in general, rejecting it as applied to judges, at once tickles the mob and reminds the reactionaries that, after all, he is rather of a conservative sort of demagogue as dcmagogues go.” This was apropos of Mr. WILSON’s remarks in Portland, to wit:

While I heartily favor the use of the recall for all administrative oflices, I do not approve of it for the judiciary, on the theory that one of the greatest dangers with which we are beset in our efforts to secure better government is impatience. \Ve are prone to use too much haste. to take too many short cuts. I admit that logically it is urianswerable that if we elect judges we have the right to recall them, but I don’t care a peppercorn for logic.

Many people will think they perceive a good deal of horse sense in this declaration; but it doesn’t suit the Sun, which also would have disapproved OLIVER JOHNSON’s assertion, made in the course of the BEECHER-TILDEN case, that he was “a Spiritualist, but not a damned fool.” The way is one the Sun has. It is always disappointed and disposed to be resentful when one who differs with it obstinately refuses to show himself a damned fool.

Certain persons who used to run things over in New Jersey feel the same way. What they objected to last winter was Governor WILSON’s methods as recalled (apologies!) by the Evening Sun:

The Hon. WOODROW WILSON, the peripatetic Executive of a neighboring state, addressing the Yale, Harvard, and Princeton clubs of San Francisco, in joint dinner assembled, said:

"The debate as to whether things are wrong is settled. Things are wrong. Now, we must get up a debate on how they may be right."

But the only sort of joint debate that Governor WILSON has any use for is one in which he does all the talking, as when he sent for the members of the legislature at Trenton and conferred with them for many hours in a speech in which he outlined what he wanted and assured them that he was going to get it, if it took them all summer to give in.

We fail to see how the Governor could have prevented others from talking even if he had wanted to, as to which, in the words of Mr. WELLER, he didn’t. But perhaps the best answer, with respect to the remedial legislation to which the Evening Sun refers, is that he did indeed get it without encroaching unduly upon even the happy springtime, to say nothing of the blithesome summer. That is how he happened to have time to travel about awhile in order to see how other Governors and legislatures are doing things. A writer in Brother JAMES SMITH’s Newark Star was duly horrified and demanded that the salary of the Governor be stopped during his absence from the state, but so far there has been no general uprising.

In point of fact, the one thing most needed in this country at this time is better acquaintanceship. It would do Brother Dr. EDWARD P. MITCHELL a lot of good, for example, to go to Kansas and Arkansas and Oklahoma. He wouldn’t get as good golf as he now enjoys at Baltusrol or Morristown or wherever he plays, but he would fetch home a deal of valuable information and would leave behind just the variety of coruscations that Kansas might chew on to advantage.

It is wholly unnecessary to assure our regular readers that these humble suggestions spring, not from a captions spirit, but from an inborn desire to do good. We would not scold the Sun. On the contrary, we would cheer it up, and as evidence of good faith will even now relieve its mind of its most ponderous burden by asserting with the utmost positiveness that if the Democratic convention shall offer the nomination for President to WOODROW WILSON he will accept.

Also that he’ll get it.

JULY 8, 1911

Reforming New Jersey Cities

Trenton, New Jersey, has adopted the commission form of government, and New Brunswick and Hoboken have rejected it. So concludes the Waterbury American, "Governor WILSON has suffered his first big defeat at the hands of the politicians." To this extent the statement is accurate; The machines of both parties bitterly fought the measure, and their efforts were supplemented by those of the officeholders, firemen, and policemen included. But these forces combined would hardly have prevailed but for a general disposition on the part of the voters of Brunswick and Hoboken to await the results of the experiment in Trenton. No exception can be taken and none has been taken by Governor WILSON to this evidence of prudence. Trenton is a typical good sized American city, and afford an excellent illustration for the guidance of its neighbors, who naturally prefer an object lesson somewhat nearer home than Galveston or Des Moines. If the experiment should turn out well, the change will be, as the Springfield Republican observes: "not the least of the achievements during a remarkable administration," from which he will "gain credit in the most ample measure for wisdom as well as daring" The bi-partisan machines will continue to fight the reform, of course. They must. Their existence is at stake. But such temporary respites as they have won in New Brunswick and Hoboken will serve only to tighten the hold which WILSON already has upon the people, whose battles he is fighting, and time will do the rest.

Down in Old Virginy

Said a Virginian of fine reputation and distinguished ancestry and much personal service to the state: There is none other but WOODROW WILSON the Democrats can nominate for President. He is just as sure to get the nomination as the sun shines, and if he gets the nomination he will also get the election. He is a little too advanced on some of the questions of the day, which are not questions at all; but he has ability, character, and courage, and would make an ideal President." -Richmond "Times Dispatch

"A good many people feel that way," adds Deacon HEMPHILL in his most sententious manner.

AUGUST 26, 1911

Utopian Thought

If every man in the country read HARPER'S WEEKLY and believed every word in it we should think that WOODROW WILSON would have a fine chance to become President. -Philadelphia Inquirer.

And it would be a country worthy of its President!

SEPTEMBER 2, 1911

Why Governor Wilson was Nominated

Dr. WILSON was nominated for Governor because he was regarded as a highly respectable and widely respected citizen, who would make a pleasing stool-pigeon for the Democratic machine and its big business beneficiaries. -HENRY BEACH NEEDHAM, in the Outlook.

Perhaps some persons so regarded him, and possibly there were enough of them to have prevented his nomination if they had known in time what manner of man he was, and had wished to prevent it. But no one of average perception, who had more than a superficial acquaintance with Dr. WILSON, could possibly have estimated him as a man who would make a stool-pigeon for any machine. Mr. NEEDHAM is likely to find if he goes deep enough, that Governor WILSON's nomination was due to an impression long and strongly held that he was a first class man, of firm character and remarkable qualities and acquirements, who was needed as a leader in Democratic politics.

SEPTEMBER 9, 1911

The Same man he was

A strange and inexplicable metamorphosis is exhibited in the case of the Governor of New Jersey. As Dr. Wilson, university president, he was cautious and conservative. -Boston Advertiser.

Our Boston brother cannot have informed himself of Dr. WILSON’s career at Princeton. He was no stand-patter college president. He introduced the tutorial system to get more effective instruction for the young gentlemen, and he tried his best to reform and democratize the social machinery of the university. The Advertiser thinks that “at some precious time” after he became Governor he concluded that conservatism was not going to be popular and pitched it all out of his head and restocked his mind with more marketable intentions.

That is all nonsense. The late president of Princeton and the present Governor of New Jersey are the same man to a hair, using the same head and with very few changes in its furniture. The Governor admits that he has changed his opinion about the initiative and referendum and has come to regard them as good brooms for political house-cleaning. But the mind that got for Princeton some novelties that he thought were good, and tried against bitter opposition to get others, is the same mind that in the Governorship has reached out for what it has considered to be political benefits for the people of New Jersey, and that with enlarged opportunities would reach boldly out for what he thought would benefit the people of the whole country.

There has been no metamorphosis. To distrust Dr. WILSON and reject any or all of his views is the voter’s privilege, but he is the same man he always was and true to the same fundamental convictions.

NOVEMBER 11, 1911

For President: Woodrow Wilson*

*Reprinted from the Independent by permission of the editors.

There are many reasons why the Democratic party would do well to nominate Woodrow Wilson for President. I shall set forth a few.

Because he is thoroughly equipped, mentally and morally, by birth, training, and experience.

A good inheritance from a virile ancestry is a great help to one who has to make his way in the world. Money has its uses in this country. Titles are not to be despised in other lands. Good breeding is desirable everywhere. Far more valuable than all combined are the attributes which crystallize into character. These constituted Wilson’s heritage. The stock from which he sprang has produced the best type of American. His grandfather, James Wilson, and his grandmother, Anne Adams, were Scotch-Irish, born in the County Down. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Woodrow, was English. Wilson served his apprenticeship under William Duane on the Philadelphia Aurora, and himself became a publicist of marked ability. Woodrow was a militant minister. Both were Presbyterians, firm in the Wilson’s son, Joseph Ruggles, married Janet Woodrow in 1849, and to them a son, christened Thomas Woodrow, was born in Staunton, Virginia, not quite fifty-five years ago. Brains, conscience, convictions, he inherited. Character he developed under the tutelage of the scholarly divine who was his father.

Thenceforward to this day Woodrow Wilson has been fitting himself for public service. Political economy was the passion of his youth. “The facts of government,” using his own accurately discriminative phrase, became the dominant interest of his mind. He mastered theories and studied the results of practice. He longed to enter public life and work out political problems at close range. The legal profession seemed to provide an avenue, and he obtained admission to the bar. But he continued to study and to learn through teaching.

It is not needful to mark the successive steps in the unaided advancement of the poor minister’s son to the presidency of a great university. The progress was steady and sure, because it was based upon intelligence and industry.

Common sense is a highly desirable possession. It obviates mistakes and at times averts unpleasant consequences. Presidents have utilized it to the advantage of the country. Mr. Hayes might have wrought immeasurable harm by attempting greater things than his intelligence could hope to achieve. His was a time when a commonplace mind in the White House was perhaps the most useful. But greatness was the requisite in Lincoln’s day, as in Jefferson’s and as now, at the beginning of a period of essential readjustment of the relations of people to promotion, of government to industrial development and enterprise, and of individuals to direct and indirect taxation.

These problems cannot be expected to solve themselves. More negation no longer suffices as a national policy. Constructive achievement is the pressing need. Here common sense, even such extraordinary common sense as is possessed by our present Chief Magistrate, falls short of the requirement.

Intelligence of the highest and rarest is peculiarly essential in a President at this time. And such is the order of Wilson’s. His sense is anything but common; it is most uncommon - keen, searching, penetrating, going straight to the root of difficulty, intent upon finding, not a palliative, but a cure. In his case to a notable degree felicity of expression rests upon clarity of thought. Wilson is not an orator in the accepted meaning of the term. He does not utilize sound in public speaking. His phrases are not rounded for purely rhetorical effect, and he never declaims. Yet no American now living can hold the attention of an audience so closely. The reason is simple. He seeks the understanding rather than the admiration of his hearers. Each word conveys a definite meaning, each is selected with precision, and each finds its rightful place. His eloquence is knowledge, not art, and its convincingness lies in its simplicity. The auditor feels that a conclusion wrought by processes of logic is the crux of the utterance. And the intuition is correct. Wilson invariably has a reason for an opinion, and always has it ready for use. Although positive, he is never dogmatic. Telling why he thinks as he does is what gives himself no less than his hearer the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. That Wilson has wider information respecting theoriesiof government than another, or perhaps any other, is not surprising. All his life has been given to its acquisition. But it is not enough to possess knowledge. One must be able to impart and elucidate its lessons. And, thanks to his experience as a teacher, few will deny that in this respect Wilson was not excelled even by Madison or by Hamilton, and stands today actually pre-eminent.

Because his conception of public service is true.

But is he “sound”? Are not his proposals “radical”? What about his advocacy of “referendum” and “ recall”? Let us see. We are now weighing the relative merits of candidates for the Democratic nomination for President. It may be well, then, to note at the beginning that each and every statesman whose name has been mentioned in this connection has pronounced in favor of the Initiative and Referendum as a method of assuring popular government. There is consequently no point at issue as between them here, except in so far as Wilson would restrict its adoption sharply to the obvious and pressing need of a community. Observation convinced him that the system has worked well in Oregon, and he frankly said so. But he added with characteristic prudence:

I do not go so far as to say that it will work out with the same satisfactory results elsewhere. Its application generally throughout the country in states where conditions are different, it seems to me, would be a matter of expediency rather than of the principle involved. I believe most thoroughly in self-government, and each state, having local conditions and local issues, must choose for itself the methods of applying the remedies.

The idea of this method of action is not to supersede lawmaking or ordinance-making bodies, but merely to supply a means of action to be used, when and if necessary, in order to keep representatives constantly aware of their dependence upon public opinion and the judgment of their constituents. It is nowhere sought to substitute these methods of action for those long established among us. The purpose is merely one of rectification, iestraint. control.

The same may be said of the recall; that is to say, the right of the voters of any political, self-governing unit to cancel the election of an officer and substitute some one else upon occasion. This is merely a means of heightening the sense of responsibility, and when properly safeguarded by the law can only with difficulty be used for any other purpose. Its intention is to establish in the field of administrative action the same sense of dependence on the common judgment that the initiative and referendum are meant to create in the field of legislative action.

In short, these are methods by which we are not attempting to destroy, but to restore - not to impair, but to repair - the great institutions which have been serviceable instruments of our liberty.

In other words, he upholds the referendum and recall, not as a substitute for, but as a guarantee of, truly representative government. It is “the gun behind the door,” to be used only in extreme cases against those who have betrayed their trust and violated their pledges.

It is as “a method of action,” not as a fundamental change, in a government of delegated powers that Wilson supports the referendum and recall and even so draws a sharp line between administration and interpretation of laws. Speaking in the heart of the section whose people, not without cause, distrust machine-made and corporation-made judges and feel the need of direct control over them, Governor Wilson said positively:

That is all wrong. Judges are not lawmakers. Neither are they administrators. Their duty is to determine not what the law should be, but what the law is. It is of the first consequence that their sense of freedom should be unhampered and preserved.

“But,” he was asked, subsequently, “if a judge misuses his office to serve a man like Lorimer, should not the people have the means to recall him?”

“I cannot,” he replied, “bring myself to further dangerous impatience. It is only a matter of waiting in the case of elective Judges. The remedy comes at the end of their terms of office. But to apply to judges the principle of the recall is to set up the idea that determinations of what the law is must respond to popular impulse and to popular judgment. No, no; that is all wrong. I do not believe in the recall of judges.”

Here we have the blending of positive conviction and intelligent discrimination characteristic of the man - the reasons why, simple, lucid, convincing, conclusive. Whether a like distinction is held in mental reserve by candidates who commend in general terms the referendum and recall will doubtless made manifest in course of time. Caution invariably awaits revelation of the effects of frankness.

In any case, by his own confession, Wilson stands convicted of inconsistency. Speaking in Norfolk, he brazenly declared:

For twenty years I preached to the students of Princeton that the referendum and recall was bosh. I have since investigated and I want to apologize to those students. It is the safeguard of politics. It takes power from the bosses and places it in the hands of the people. I want to say with all my power that I favor it.

In the recent review published in The Outlook one finds this passage:

"You have certainly shown that you are not afraid to change your mind, Governor."

"I hope I have grown," he replied. "For fifteen years I taught my classes that the initiative and referendum wouldn't work. I can prove it now, but the trouble is they do."

If such inconsistency be a crime, the most may be made of it rightfully, because fuller illustrations may be had at any time. Persistence in error is as incompatible with a nature like Wilson’s as abandonment of truth. Self-betrayal of discovery that he has been in the wrong may be reckoned a certainty always, for the simple reason that to one of his upbringing concealment of fact is no less heinous than deliberate falsehood. Most men are technically truthful. Wilson is honest in his mind. Temperamentally he is incapable of acting under the rose. Whatever he has done or may do, wise or unwise, politic or impolitic, tactful or tactless, has been or will be done in the open. His cards are always on the table.

Upon this conception of conduct Wilson has based his every act as a public servant. If it be regarded as unsound, then truly his election to the Presidency would make for apprehension, for he knows no other way.

Because his proposals are radical.

Whatever is, is conservative. The referendum is required to effects change in fundamental law. A proposal to eliminate it would be radical. So is a suggestion to extend its application to statutes. Obviously there is no disparity in principle. To any change whatsoever that militates against selfinterest the opprobrious term is applied indignantly by the one who considers himself most concerned. From this viewpoint the very provision for making a change contained in the Constitution itself is radical. Again, what was radical yesterday becomes conservative to-day. To free the slaves was the most radical proposal ever made in this country, because the act not only violated property rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, but was done in frank disregard of the technical prohibition of that great instrument, under the specious guise of military necessity.

So now with the proposal to free the people by restoring to them the power of governing themselves. That is the first and dominant article in the creed of Woodrow Wilson. Not that they are now deprived of that prerogative, as might have happened through substitution of a monarchical form of government. Nothing so obvious as that. Only this: that the process has been rendered so difficult that, instead of governing themselves, the many have come under the dominance of the few, who act by indirection and under cover of the darkness of secrecy to achieve their own purposes. Whether or not this is the actual condition may be a matter of opinion, but to those who have watched and analyzed the work of state legislatures, and more particularly that of the federal Congress with respect to the tariff, it seems a patent fact. Moreover, the constant unrest of the masses during recent years bears evidence of their feeling that the road to effective legislation has been made too tortuous to tread.

Wilson says: Open an avenue through the jungle.

But how? By direct primaries for all elective offices, President and Vice-President included. By popular election of Senators. By open conventions, caucuses, and committees. By legislation in the full light of day. By full discussion of measures before the faces of the people. If and when necessary, by Initiative, Referendum, and Recall.

These are the means proposed. They are radical because they involve change. But the purpose aimed at is conservative - conservative of republican institutions. If it be not achieved, our theory of government is belied, our faith in majority rule as the beacon-light of humanity is crushed, our confidence in the desire and willingness of a democracy to safeguard both property and personal rights is forsworn. This way, and this way only, safety lies. To conserve the Nation through intelligent radicalism. Why not? How else? Let it stand at that.

Because he is constructive and effective.

Ignorance may be destructive; passion often is; intelligence never. To-day. in this country abounding in resources, energy, and skill, industry pauses, business lags, development has practically ceased. Why? The answer is universal: Uncertainty, resulting in lack of confidence. In such a conditon, what is the chief need? Clearly, unless we admit failure of popular government, a revival of the recognition of mutuality of interest.

“We have passed the time of excitement, of general complaint, of undiscriminating condemnation,” says Wilson. “There has been hostility enough all around. What we need now is to take common counsel as to what is for common benefit, for the good of the country and of the several communities in which we live and earn our bread and also our happiness. We need frank, outspoken, friendly opinion. We need criticism which is not intended to damage, but to create a better understanding all around. To have any fear or favor in the matter is to be untrue to every standard of public duty. . . . We want to put business on a sound basis and with the assurance that when we have done it we have not destroyed anything, but have reconstructed. We want definite information as to what the law means and what it provides. We don’t know now what the offense is and what the penalty is.”

Some assume to think otherwise, but are disposed to temporize when asked to elucidate. Wilson, be it observed, never blinks a fact. Nor does he hesitate to speak as plainly and explicitly to a powerful aggregation or organization as to an individual. He does not believe that Labor can profit by championing inefiiciency and idleness through Union rules, and says so because he “knows of no other standard by which to judge these things than the interest of the whole community,” and surely “the laboring man cannot benefit himself by injuring the interests of the country.”

So, too, with the captains of industry, who must come to recognize that they are “trustees, not masters,” of properties whose management “determines the development or decay of communities” and is “the means of lifting or depressing the life of the whole country.” Such men “should regard themselves as representatives of a public power” and act accordingly, because the opportunities of all are affected. their property touched, their savings absorbed, and their employment dctermincd by these agencies.

All Wilson asks of corporations is that they give the people honest service at a reasonable rate, not with the primary idea of squeezing and exploiting them, but with the primary idea of serving them. Nor can he perceive any advantage in dissolving corporations, however great, when so doing serves only to throw great undertakings out of gear, to the infinite loss of thousands of innocent persons, and to the great inconvenience of society as a whole. Regulation, not disintegration, is Wilson’s remedy for existing evils, without regard to the “size or might” of the corporation, “if you will but abandon the famous, antiquated, and unnecessary fiction which treats it as a legal person, as a responsible individual.” He would be loath to sacrifice the “efficiency and economy” which tend to stimulate rather than destroy competition, and he would applaud and encourage the builders of properties, however great, while sternly condemning and repressing mere manipulators who deceive and swindle the public.

In working out these problems, moreover, “the Democratic party must be a party of law and of service within the law. If we cannot serve the country under the law, we must ask the people to change the law. We must not take it upon ourselves to change it without their consent.”

Upon utterances such as these Woodrow Wilson was elected Governor of New Jersey. To carry out his pledges he was obliged to win the support of a Republican Senate and to beat down the opposition of the bosses within his own party. He did both by appealing directly to the people, and placed upon the statute-books a record of constructive and effective legislation unmatched in the history of any state. Destruction followed - destruction of the control of state government by a public-service corporation; that and no other.

Because he is free.

We have the highest authority for the declaration that no man can serve two masters; and yet how many in public life have tried and are now trying! Not willingly, many; not wittingly, some; but perforce. One owes his advancement to a class, another to a political machine, a third to an individual. We have had such Presidents. One whose name need not be mentioned was indebted to each of the three factors in about equal measure. Being a just and grateful man, he made recompense accordingly. Upon the class he helped to confer great pecuniary benefits; to the “organization” he gave the offices and opportunities to plunder; the individual he raised to a position of high honor and great power. All this he did in conformity with the custom of his party and with the seeming acquiescence of the people, despite the facts that the class was not needy, but greedy, that the “machine” was shameless in appropriating public moneys to its private uses, and that the individual was the most brazen corruptionist the country has ever produced.

When these, to whom he was most directly indebted, had been satisfied, the good President, who sincerely believed himself to be most fair and honorable, paid devoted attention to the welfare of the millions whose votes he had received, and became, in common judgment, deservedly popular. The initial payments, exacted from the people, were regarded as no more than just rewards for services rendered in saving the people from themselves.

Undue blame should not attach to the individual for such a performance, even though it be in effect a betrayal of trust. Custom is a mighty power, and loyalty to one or to a few is less easily disregarded than fidelity to all. Circumstances and environment, too, are most potent agencies. Few have attained great political prominence without making alliances and incurring lasting obligations in the successive stages of advancement. Nor can many withstand the influence upon perspective of association.

It is not, then, so much a matter of condemnation of others as of congratulation upon the mere incident that Wilson is free. Whether or not, in like situations with others, covering years of officeseeking, he would have become likewise entangled, is beside the mark. It is the fact that is important and peculiarly fortuitous at a time when, if ever, it is desirable that a President should have the whole people as his one and only master.

That such is indeed the case with Wilson hardly requires demonstration. It is evidenced conclusively by his every word and deed. To the leadership which effected his own nomination for Governor upon a platform guaranteeing specific reforms he stood ready to accord due recognition, but when that leadership came into conflict with faithful performance of public duties he could not and did not hesitate to choose and to serve the one master to whom he had pledged his own allegiance. He did not attempt to weigh obligations, the one against the other; he did not temporize nor try to harmonize. The straight and narrow path pointed out to him in his youth was the only one he knew - and he took it, disdainful of personal criticism and heedless of personal consequences. That exceptional credit should be accorded him for so doing does not follow necessarily. The forces impelling his conduct were inherited conscience and developed character, agencies, however, as valuable in the public service as they happily have proven to be irresistible in the man.

It is as a highly important fact, too, rather than as a matter of personal merit, that Wilson’s environment, associations, and sphere of endeavor have tended to keep high his ideals, to broaden his vision, and to intensify his resolution. To have achieved great prominence and the rich emoluments which accompany success at the bar would have been a meritorious performance and worthy of all praise, but in no way commensurate with the advantages he derived from enforced industry, from enforced frugality, from enforced association and sympathy with those who, like himself, were compelled to earn their bread and rear their children with the product of brain and toil.

Such necessity and such environment make for that freedom of understanding which is no less the requisite of a great magistracy than freedom from political obligation to any except to all.

Because he is a Democrat.

That may sound trite or commonplace. Let us see. When the time came for the new Republic to put into practice the admirable theories which its founders had put upon paper, the actual application devolved upon the governing class. No one - not even Jefferson - at the time of Washington’s inauguration had dreamed of any other possibility. A mighty step forward had been taken. For the first time personal liberty, no less than protection of property, was guaranteed. Equal rights to all white males were also assured, etc., etc. But when it came to the actual management of public affairs the responsibility must devolve, as a matter of course, upon those fitted by birth, education, and training to bear the burdens safely and solve the problems with sagacity. It was to be a government of the people necessarily; else it would be no government at all. But it was to be more specifically the very best government for the people ever known, carried on in their interest and, with their acquiescence, by the very best and most conscientious governors ever known. This was as far as the Fathers got under Washington and Adams and the other patriotic aristocrats who, during the first twelve years of the Republic, sat in Cabinet, on the bench, and in the two Houses of Congress.

Government by as well as of and for the people was first proposed and put into practice by Thomas Jefferson, who thereupon became the first real Democrat. As a student and philosopher he beheld danger in heeding the customs of the past and restricting to a class, however capable, the possession of actual governing powers. He felt the need of broadening the base of government to insure the stability of the structure of democracy. To do so involved implicit faith in the wisdom and sense of justice in the entire body politic. But this he had, and, acting upon his judgment, endeavored by precept and example to instill the theory of true democracy into the minds of the people. Denounced as a radical, even as a revolutionist, he grew stronger and more determined under opposition, until what had been only an impulse originally became a passionate conviction. Reaction followed as a matter of course. Habit of mind is not changed permanently with case. But the spirit which inspired Jefferson could not be killed. It flashed forth incongruously for a time in Jackson, then waned through long years, until it burst into flame in Lincoln, only to subside again in a period of great development and common prosperity, until there arose from apathy and indifference another governing class - the oligarchy of the Republican party - which has really ruled the Nation as with a rod of iron, even through two administrations which were nominally Democratic and one as spasmodic as Jackson’s, to the present day, and is breaking down at last only under the added weight of heedless greed.

The time is ripe and the people are now ready for a fresh manifestation of the spirit of true democracy, which alone can safeguard personal and property rights by perpetuating the Republic. It is to be found in Woodrow Wilson, the natural successor by birth, instinct, training, ability, courage, and faith in the people of Thomas Jefferson.

Because he would be elected.

I have tried merely to set forth a few of the reasons why Mr. Wilson ought to be elected. That he would be - speaking, of course, from the present outlook - hardly requires demonstration. But this is one of the years when the people must nominate as well as elect. Will they do it? That is the question - the only one.

GEORGE HARVEY.

NOVEMBER 18, 1911.

The Famous Victory

So WOODROW WILSON is down and out. Dear, dear! Who would have thought it? But we may not blink a fact - and this one we have upon the highest political authority. Ex-Senator JAMES SMITH, Jr., emerging from the capacious shell which he has inhabited since he was elected to stay in Newark, dolefully shakes his wise head, and his good friend, the Sun, finds that the Governor has suddenly become “a candidate emeritus.” All because of what? Because he has been “repudiated” by his state. Because the “magnificent Democratic organization” of New Jersey has been disrupted by his cantankerous insistence upon keeping party pledges. Because, speaking frankly, he fought the big Boss and licked him. Because, as an inevitable consequence, the next legislature will be Republican. So! But what really happened? The Springfield Republican sums it up neatly:

The New Jersey House was lost because of Essex County, which is the home of JAMES SMITH, Jr., the foe of Governor WILSON’s political aspirations; and Essex County became impossible, from the WILSON point of view, the moment that SMITH succeeded in nominating anti-WILSON Democrats. The Governor did not contest the county. Outside of it, his followers made gains, and the Senate is more nearly Democratic than before.

Supplement this statement with the further information that the next Senate, as well as the next House, would be Democratic if the party had carried Essex County, that the machine candidates for the Assembly were definitely pledged by resolutions to oppose reform legislation, and that the Republican and Democratic bosses politely swapped a sheriff for “legislators,” and you have the whole story.

True, the cause of good government is not likely to suffer from the presence in Trenton, of decent Republicans in the place of puppets of the deposed Democratic chairman whom the Governor courteously kicked out of his office; but it was, indeed, a famous victory. Fresh supplies of oil can now be found for the bi-partisan machinery, the ex-Senator can approach his fellow-bosses throughout the country with reinforced blandishments, and the naturally amiable Sun can continue to chortle with glee. We would not begrudge them their satisfaction. Rather let us extend felicitations, especially to our neighbor, the Sun. It is a shame that one so brightly named should feel obliged to go about forever cawing like a crow when it should be emulating the lark. Time was when its breakfast food was as toothsome as the lightest of muffins. but of late it has run to pickles in variety hardly surpassed by the inventive Mr. HEINZ himself. The President has proven hopeless, the Attorney-General worse than an anarchist, the Speaker blubber-lipped, the New York Governor distressingly flabby, and the Massachusetts Governor a bemustached flambeau, to say nothing of Brothers BRYAN and ROOSEVELT and other stock objects of sarcastic reference. The only ray of light that has relieved the editorial gloom for months has been an occasional furtive compliment to Uncle Jun. Having got Dr. Syntax on the hip at last, with the aid of the distinguished ex-Senator, the Sun can now assume the role of Mrs. Partington in relation to the Atlantic Ocean with pristine vigor and characteristic skilfulness in the use of Latin phrases. Let us rejoice and be glad!

The Voice of the South

Last Saturday the Democratic State Committee of New Jersey pledged sixteen counties of New for Woodrow Wilson for President. It was a stampede, but it formally launched Governor Wilson's Presidential fortunes upon the high political seas. About the same time Governor Wilson, in an interview with HARPER'S WEEKLY sounded the battle tocsin for 1912, summarized as follows: "The call of the day is for leadership: the people demand and will support the men who rightly interpret public opinion and who are ready to make that opinion operative.” No wonder the Democrats of New Jersey rallied around the Princetonion. Here is a leader who has made it his life study to understand public opinion; a leader who has shown exceptional courage in carrying out the people’s will as Governor of New Jersey; a leader who will dare to do as President what he is now doing as Governor. Governor Wilson maintains that the big question of the day is one of adjustment between economic problems, public opinion, and our system of legislation.

The campaign of 1912, we predict, will revolve around this one big idea of adjustment, and Woodrow Wilson will be the man who will do the adjusting from the White House, beginning March 4, 1912. Congressman Edward P. Kinkead, who launched the Wilson boom last Saturday at Trenton, rightly exclaimed that “if Governor Wilson is nominated at the national Democratic convention, nothing but the hand of God will prevent his election.” The country is ready to retire the present failure in the White House, who, with “great scarchin of heart,” turned down the people's cause of tariff revision on daily necessities. -Selma (Alabama) “Journal.”

The Men Behind Wilson

Little indeed do they know WOODROW WILSON who fancy he will be changed in the slightest degree by the failure of one county in the state to elect a set of candidates for the legislature of whom everybody knew that they were not his followers. Still less do they understand the kind of loyalty WOODROW WILSON has inspired who fancy that the men who, near and far, welcomed and accepted his leadership will by this expected happening be anywise changed except as they may answer it with an increase of confidence and zeal. Governor WILSON has not shaped his course or his opinions by any imagined demands of his own interests or fortunes. His followers have not preferred his leadership because of his personal success or his prospects. He has concerned himself singly with the extraordinary service which he found a chance to render to sound democracy, to free government, to a state long peculiarly surrendered to sinister and ignoble selfish interests. His nation-wide following has come to him because sincere men all over the country quickly recognize him as not merely an uncommonly well-equipped publicist, but a fighter who fought his battles through, a champion of good causes who could neither be frightened nor cajoled. a man to whom they could give at least the loyalty they had so long kept undevoted, waiting for a leader they could trust. Such men will hardly be disappointed because he has not made omelettes without breaking eggs. They will hardly be surprised because the most extraordinary and successful assault on machine rule over achieved in this country did not find favor with the machine itself.

The Boss of Bosses

With respect to the distinguished ex-Senator, candor compels the admission that he has now qualified as the leader of the anti-WILSON forces, as the Boss of bosses. Already he had paved the way. Shrewdly foreseeing that no WILSON Assemblymen were likely to be elected in a county where no WILSON candidates were running, he went boldly into the West and hazarded all. The Times told about it at the time. In its of November 4th, we find the following of his activities:

The return of ex-United States Senator JAMES SMITH, Jr., of Newark. New Jersey, from a trip to the West. which was supposed to be purely for business purposes, has revealed the fact that he spent much time in conference with men who will oppose Governor WOODROW WILSON as a Presidential candidate at the Democratic national convention- next year. That the former boss of the Democratic party in New Jersey still smarts under the blow administered to his political ambition by Governor Wilson is known. His recent activity in national politics is taken by many politicians in New Jersey as an indication that he means to get even with Governor WlLSON, who defeated his attempt to return to the Senate.

Mr. Smith is not talking for publication regarding his trip to the West, but he has talked to close political friends. He is said to have told them of the strong sentiment in the Middle West for Governor HARMON, and that he found no WILSON sentiment there. MR. SMITH himself is for Governor HARMON, and looks upon Representative Oscar W. UNDERWOOD, of Alabama, as an ideal man for the second place on the national ticket.

Mr. SMITH is said to have learned while in the West that among the anti-WILSON Democrats there is a strong sentiment for UNDERWOOD. It is understood that the New Jersey boss has argued with some of the men favoring UNDERWOOD that it would be easier to raise a campaign fund with HARMON as the candidate than it would be with UNDERWOOD. He has also argued, in exchange of confidenccs with his friends, that a division can be figured by which Governor WILSON will lose Alabama and Georgia in the convention.

Among the statesmen with whom the ex-senator communicated regarding the state of the Union and prospective campaign funds the Times names the Hon. ROGER SULLIVAN, of Illinois, the Hon. JERRY B. SULLIVAN, of Iowa, the Hon. DANIEL J. CAMPAU, of Michigan, and the Hon. THOMAS TAGGART, of Indiana. The report continues:

It is said that in the East Mr. SMITH counts very largely on the New York leaders and on the assistance of National Chairman NORMAN E. MACK. There have been persistent rumors that Mr. SMITH and Mr. MACK figured in a recent conference of party leaders in New York, and the candidate for President on the ticket for 1912 is said to have received much attention.

And concludes:

The former New Jersey Senator is credited with being the main factor behind an anti-WILSON movement with the chief purpose of systematically stilling the WILSON sentiment throughout the country, but more especially in the Middle West and in the South.

It will be seen, therefore, that the ex-Senator was, in a sense, on trial in the recent election, not before the people, of course, but in the eyes of his illustrious confreres. Clearly, as we have already observed, he qualified as the leader of the bosses in their great movement to bottle up the Democratic party. From this time forward we shall expect to see him receive from his comrades, as we ourselves shall cheerfully accord him, faithful recognition. We begin immediately by sternly rebuking the Evening Post for saying that “it would certainly 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 the Springfield Republican for declaring that “the fairest inference is that the Democratic party ought to be proud of Governor WILSON because of the enemies he has made.” Such talk is unbecoming and tends to disrupt the magnificent organization which has lost the last four national elections. The people must be saved from themselves at all hazards, personal grievances must be heeded in selecting a candidate for President, a barrel must be opened to “keep the organization together,” bosses must stand or fall together, “demagogues” must be crushed, “open mouths” must be closed, private arrangements with the other side must be inviolate; tradition, in a word, must be respected - all in the name of THOMAS JEFFERSON. Hail, then, to the new chief, the Boss of bosses, the combiner of all forces opposed to the one man who, stands forth pre-eminent as the tribune of the whole people!

NOVEMBER 25, 1911

He Takes a Lot of Killing

We do not wonder at a certain acerbity in the criticism Governor WILSON gets from such as began some time ago to be sure of the imminence of his downfall. His behavior has certainly been most inconsiderate of the feelings of people committed to that view of his career. Although he has been in office less than a year, he has maliciously contrived an extraordinary number of disappointments to their reasonable expectations.

Some of them began to form such expectations even before he went into office. They were quite sure, and naturally so, that when it came to regular campaigning and stump - speaking before miscellaneous audiences the scholarly and academic gentleman would be disgusted himself and fail entirely to get in touch with the crowds that curiosity would bring out to hear him. But he inconsiderately threw himself into this experience with positive enjoyment, and he developed a ready sympathy with the temper and the intellectual demands of his fellow-Jerseymen that was, to say the least, contrary to all the accepted traditions concerning fastidious scholars in contact with plain business men and working-men.

Of course, however, when he was actually in office he was going to prove indulgent to the wishes of the persons who had always run things and who had taken him up and nominated him simply to conciliate respectable people. He was well-meaning. no doubt, but what could he do against the really practical politicians who were using him? Well, he was this time quite as inconsiderate of the practical politicians as of the people who saw so clearly that he was going to be a mere figurehead. He not only announced at once that he was going to exercise the party leadership to which he had been chosen, but he did exercise it to an extent quite unprecedented. The gentlemen who were going to manage him were cruelly disappointed at his irregularity and forsook him in disgust, even leaving him unaided to make his appointments and abandoning the high places to which they had generously meant to let him help them climb.

But then there was the legislature and the Utopian legislative programme which he had gone about the state assuring people that he and his party really intended to put through. There, of course, would be the end of him - the end of taking him seriously. The old hands would never dream of letting him put through such a thing as the promised election law, or direct primaries, or a law to regulate public-service corporations that might really force the corporations to pay some attention. Yet at this crisis his contumacy was worse than ever. He was no longer merely inconsiderate; he was persistently and systematically outrageous of all precedents. And successfully, too; that was the worst of it. He not only defied the machines of both parties and insisted on keeping his own party’s pledges, but he carried the legislature with him. He got that preposterously honest programme through, and the legislature adjourned without a bit of conciliatory jobbery such as the old hands of course expected.

It was the same way when he went out West speech-making. There were two blunders of contradictory character, but both inevitable, which he declined to make. He did not, in excessive eagerness to conciliate a supposed Western sentiment, come out for the recall of judges. He did not, to show his independence, disregard and antagonize Western sentiment. He merely remained himself and talked his convictions and took the West sympathetically - and the West accepted him with astonishing readiness of comprehension.

His latest feat of contrariety is his worst. This time he went beyond his usual practice of giving people every reason to foresee his collapse. He let them see it. Gentlemen who had all along predicted it now at last announced it. But he capped the climax by repudiating his repudiation - he and his friends also. He and they refused to accept even the positive announcement of his downfall. They pointed out that it was not he, but his enemies, who had been really beaten, really repudiated. They proved that the results of the election showed him to be really as strong as ever. Then it also promptly appeared that his friends and supporters throughout the country, instead of desorting him, were actually stirred to a still more ardent activity in his behalf.

No wonder such a man has sarcastic critics. His persistent and obstinate refusal to accept the logical downfalls they predict for him is not merely unreasonable, but exasperating.

DECEMBER 2, 1911

The Voice of the East

All over the country the editors of newspapers are now discussing the Wilson movement. You find opinions expressed in the metropolitan journals and in the country Weeklies. You find them in the magazines, in trade publications, and in religious journals, as well as in the daily press.

Taken altogether, these expressions leave no possibility of doubt of the universality and the vitality of the Wilson movement.

This sentiment is not purchased sentiment. It couldn't be bought with the biggest campaign fund ever gotten together.

It is simply the spontaneous, honest opinions of the men who are sitting at the newspaper desks in every city and town in the country - men who are trying to determine the pulse and convictions of the people, and to find the man who will best represent those convictions as the executive head of the nation.

You can sometimes buy individual newspaper men. You can sometimes buy individual newspapers. You can sometimes buy the support of nearly al the newspapers in one town.

But nobody would believe that you could buy newspapers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, newspapers in county-seats and in state capitals, newspapers that cater to the farmers and others that cater to the factory employees, newspapers in the mining districts and in the lumber districts, newspapers in the mountains and on the prairies, newspapers that are satisfied with some hundreds of readers and others that boast of hundreds of thousands of readers.

Yet fully as comprehensive as all this is the newspaper support that is being given to Governor Wilson for the Presidency.

But newspaper support in itself is not of primary significance. You must go back of the newspapers to find out what is really going on.

The average editor will hesitate a long time before he advocates the candidacy of a man whom he believes to be out of sympathy with the readers of his newspaper. He feels that his readers are his neighbors and friends and he has no desire to antagonize them. He talks with them, receives letters from them, hears from them through his reporters, listens to their discussions in the public places. He feels the sting of their criticisms and rejoices over their commendations. He likes to feel that his newspaper is “in touch” with the community which he lives.

Unconsciously he is infiuenc by the views of those with whom he is so intimately associated. Unconsciously he learns to think as they think and to feel as they feel, and presently the sentiments of his clientele become his sentiments, and the first thing he knows he is putting those ideas into his newspaper. So that, speaking generally, the views of an editor are representative of the views of his neighbors and friends, of the readers of his newspaper, if you will.

And thus it is fair to presume that the overwhelming newspaper support of Governor Woodrow Wilson from one end of the country to the other is merely an expression of the universal desire of the people of the United States that Governor Wilson be called to the leadership of his party in the next Presidential campaign. -Trenton "True American."

DECEMBER 9, 1911

New Jersey and the Boss of Bosses

My, but our philosopher and friend of the envied poise, Colonel GEORGE HARVEY of HARPER'S WEEKLY, discoverer and custodian of the WILSON boom, is becoming peeved. This New Jersey boss JIM SMITH, who made Mr. WILSON Governor and was stung by the hand, etc., turned the state over to the Republicans, and a lot of newspapers, including the Sun which shines for all, have insisted that the return of New Jersey to the Republicans was a repudiation of the Democracy's favorite son for President. -Watertown Standard.

Here are the majorities for Assemblymen as shown by the official returns for the past three years:

..................... 1909...... 1910....... 1911

Essex County....... 7,860 R ... 4,939 D ... 7,288 R

Other counties.... 33,642 R ... 9,531 D .. 10,388 D

Totals ........... 41,502 R .. 14,470 R ... 3,100 D

There is the whole story. Despite the great help of Mr. WILSON's personal candidacy in 1910, resulting in a plurality of 50,000 for Governor, the Democratic Assembly majorities outside of Essex County show an actual increase of 457 votes in 1911 over 1910. Those candidates were supported by Governor WILSON. The candidates in Essex were not. They were nominated by ex-Senator SMITH's machine and pledged to oppose Governor WILSON's proposals. Result:

Democratic loss in Mr. SMITH'S county ........ 12,227

Democratic gain in other counties ............ .. 457

Net Democratic loss .......................... 11,770

And yet the state went Democratic by more than three thousand as against a Republican majority in 1909 of 41,502. Be its remembered, too, that but for the treachery in Essex County the Democrats would have won both Houses of the legislature for the first time in twenty years. It is easy enough now to see who knocked out that 40,000 Republican majority in 1910, as well as whose policies won public favor in 1911. The Boss of bosses may derive happiness from having gratified a personal grudge at the expense of his party, but if he can find any ground for pride in the size of his own following he is, indeed, a wonder.

Oh yes, Mr. Watertown Standard, the vote in New Jersey was in fact a “repudiation,” and a mighty sharp one, too. But it was repudiation of JAMES SMITH, Jr., not of WOODROW WILSON, as you will see when New Jersey rolls up another 50,000 majority for him for President next year.

No Occasion for Alarm

Mr. NUGENT, former chairman of the Democratic State Committee of New Jersey, declares that he will see to it that delegates favorable to the nomination of Governor WILSON for President do not get to the national convention from that state. Both NUGENT and ex-Senator JAMES SMITH, Jr., are believed to be Harmon men. -Springfield Republican.

So! Well, the Democrats of New Jersey will have an opportunity to choose between Mr. NUGENT and Mr. WILSON in the Presidential primary. The result will speak for itself. Have no uneasiness, Mr. Republican!

Not Inexperienced and not Misunderstood

One of CLEVELAND’s biographers gives a conversation with him that bears quite logically on the present preliminary campaign for the Presidency. CLEVELAND was asked if he did not feel that he had been unfortunate in coming to the Presidency without the long experience in national politics which most Presidents had enjoyed. He answered no; that any disadvantage he had suffered from on that score was fully offset by his coming in free from the political debts and bargains and compromises and commitments which such careers almost invariably entail. It was, in fact, rather fortunate that his experience as an Executive had been in a different field.

It was also, no doubt, thought by many that the people of the country did not understand him and what he stood for nearly so well as they ought to; but that also proved a mistake; the election returns did not sustain it.

Some people are making the same two mistakes about WOODROW WILSON. His experience has been, in fact, exceptionally well adapted to fit him for the real requirements of the Presidency. Compare it in that respect not only with CLEVELAND'S, but with LINCOLN’s - never a national figure until two years before his election. Yet it leaves him extraordinarily free - free to obey his own convictions, free to serve the true needs of his countrymen. And his countrymen do understand him and what he stands for - better, we believe, than at the corresponding stage they understood CLEVELAND or even LINCOLN. His outspokenness and the uncommonly significant and revealing character of his public acts have made it easy to understand him. Straw ballots and newspaper comments are, no doubt, frequently misleading tests of public opinion concerning public men. So, too, are “many letters” from writers already committed to a particular leader. But there are always a few men exceptionally clever at getting. at the drift of opinion and sentiment. CROKER, it is said, used to take to the smoking-rooms of the cars when he wanted to find what people were thinking. One such man, not committed to WILSON, and apparently, indeed, rather surprised at his own discoveries, reports from a Southern state that by the careful estimate he has been making WILSON led his closest competitor by about eight out of ten. “The people,” he says, “like Mr. WILSON’s aggressiveness. They consider him honorable, upright, and courageous.” Still more striking is the discovery that he is peculiarly strong with a certain particularly thoughtful kind of voters; for precisely the same thing has been discovered in the West.

It is always dangerous to make any judgment or calculation on the theory that Americans are either slow or stupid when it comes to understanding character, to discerning the true quality of a public man. They are not infallible, but that is the best thing they do, and they do it better and more promptly than most politicians suppose.

JULY 13, 1912

The Issue Joined

After much hemming and hawing, the Democrats rose to the occasion at Baltimore and nominated their strongest candidate. Granting the probability of the election this year of any reputable statesman who could hold substantially the full support of his party, there can be no doubt that WOODROW WILSON will poll at least half a million more votes than any other whose name was presented for consideration.

The nomination of a conservative, however liberal-minded, would have served only to open the door to Mr. ROOSEVELT. A “dark horse” would have been laughed off the track. Mr. BRYAN himself was a hack. Intelligent choice, therefore, was restricted to Speaker CLARK, the sturdy representative of the Old Order, and Governor WILSON, the virile champion of the New. The basis of Mr. CLARK’s majority in the convention was appreciation of true worth and services rendered, supplemented by strong personal attachments. The foundation of Mr. WILSON’s two-thirds was the feeling that he was a winner, enhanced by admiration of his exceptional intellectual capacity, consideration of his freedom from entanglements, and respect for his moral courage. As between the two, the correctness of the ultimate decision, from the standpoint of availability, is beyond question. If the Democrats cannot elect WOODROW WILSON, they could not elect anybody.

No Democratic national canvass since JACKSON’S has been inaugurated more auspiciously. The points of vantage may be summarized briefly as follows:

A Democratic year. The people are disgusted with the Republican party and eager for a change.

Disruption of the opposition. The differences of the two wings, for the first time since the Republican party was born, are irreconcilable.

An open and honest convention. In marked contrast with the doings at Chicago, there was at Baltimore no arbitrary action on behalf of one candidate and no suggestion of bribery in the interest of another.

The main issue. At last the line is sharply drawn between excessive protection and a revenue tariff.

An unpledged candidate. Nobody pretends that Mr. Wilson is under the slightest obligation to any man or group of men for his nomination.

Elimination of bosses. So far from catering to those accustomed to control, Mr. WILSON defied them. He had not hesitated to denounce Mr. MURPHY Mr. SULLIVAN, and Mr. TAGGART by name. His sole appeal was to Public Opinion.

Removal of the blight of Bryanism. Mr. WILSON owes nothing to the marplot who schemed to obtain the nomination for himself. Nor is he bound in any way to recognize the vagaries which for so long have discredited the party in the estimation of the country.

Independent support. Almost without exception, the powerful public journals have already pledged the exercise of their utmost endeavors on behalf of the Democratic standard-bearer.

Moral sentiment. The wide-spread revulsion of conscientious citizens against political depravity which Mr. ROOSEVELT has tried with consummate skill to capitalize for his own advancement now inures to the advantage of Governor WILSON, to the great relief of millions who distrusted ROOSEVELT but knew not where else to turn.

A vivid personality. Mr. WILSON has demonstrated matchless power of effective appeal to the masses generally, and to active, enthusiastic, younger men in particular. This means that his canvass will be surcharged with the same electrical, persuasive energy which achieved his nomination.

Such are some of the weighty influences whose tacit recognition has already induced a common belief that Mr. WILSON’s election is a virtual certainty. It is our own prudent judgment, uninfluenced by the billowy enthusiasm of the moment, that he will win. And yet the possibilities ever attendant upon the performance of a great political drama are not to be ignored with impunity. Many a Democrat has been elected in July, only to be buried under an avalanche of votes in November. Mr. TAFT’s prospects are now at their lowest ebb. First driven by treachery and shameful abuse to the extreme of undignificd personal defense, then fought with unexampled bitterness in his contest for a deserved renomination, and now confronting not only an open dctachment from his own ranks, but also a most resourceful and daring Democratic opponent, his record of accomplishments upon which he must ultimately rely is for the moment eclipsed. But the fact that few Presidents have rendered more valuable service under trying conditions remains.

Mr. TAFT’s fidelity, his conscientious endeavors, his singleness of unselfish purpose, his purity of intent, his notable achievements, are forgotten only for the time. They will be recalled with gratitude and emphasized with effect.

The value of experience to the mind of the country also is to be reckoned with. Since 1884 no man who had not rendered service in the federal government has been elected President. May it not be possible that, in the final judgment, the advantages necessarily derived from actual practice will be accorded serious consideration? How thoroughly the people are convinced of the practical eiiiciency of President TAFT’s policies and methods with respect to our present problems is undoubtedly a question, but such as they are they at least stand revealed by application, and are no longer subjects of speculation or foolish fears. The temper of the people, we take it, is now strong for change, even though it be experimental, but craving for novelty often subsides under the proverbial sober second thought.

As a matter of history, moreover, nobody since JACKSON has been elected President who did not hold the confidence of that great and powerful group commonly referred to as the business men of the country. Is there is any serious menace to the present growing prospects of Governor WILSON, we should say that it lies in apprehension of official acts, springing from praiseworthy aspirations, which might tend to retard restoral of general prosperity. That Mr. Wilson will avail himself of the first opportunity to make evident, that there is no real cause for such solicitude may, however, in our judgment, be assumed with confidence.

Finally, the Republican party is not dead. Though seemingly sleeping for the moment, it will soon be as wide awake and determined to win as ever before in its successful career. And it is still the strongest, most compact, best equipped, and most skilfully directed political organization the world has ever known.

The menace of ROOSEVELT, we rejoice to believe, is removed, but none can gainsay that his activities will inject a new and perplexing factor into the contest. Will his candidacy serve only to weaken Mr. TAFT, or will it attract a sufficient number of radicals from both parties to upset all calculations? These are pregnant questions to which, in our opinion, answers cannot now be made with any degree of certainty.

One feature of the situation at least is peculiarly gratifying. In view of the sharply defined issues and the repute of the two leading candidates, there is every reason to expect that this will be a campaign of ideas which, though illuminative and exhilarating, will be conducted upon a high plane and kept free from personalities such as in times past have reflected discredit upon American citizenship.

JULY 20, 1912

Not a Kick, Just a Hint

Chairman HILLES's initial pronunciamento begins like a dirge. "The Republican party," he says, "approaches the Presidential campaign with confidence in the solomnity of its cause." We guess it does. If ever there was a time when confidence that gloom o'ershadows all was warranted by the facts, this is it. Nevertheless, Mr. HILLES bucks up and says, stoutly:

More has been accomplished in the last three years under the administration of President TAFT than was ever before accomplished by an American President in the same period of time.

Oh, come! Everybody knows that Mr. TAFT has done the best he could, and has really accomplished quite a lot, as we have had occasion to remark more than once. But if Mr. HILLES will take a look into WOODROW WILSON’s History of the American People - one of the very best histories printed, believe us - he will discover that there was considerable doing in the last three years of LINCOLN’s term, to say nothing of a few others’.

Anyway, we are cheered by the reflection that “Upon the solid rock of the rights of the individual as granted by the Constitution the Republican party builds its structure of optimism.” The party couldn’t do better. That is one of our very best rocks, quite capable of upholding all the gaiety that Mr. HILLES has now or is likely to have for some time to come. But see what the wicked Democrats are up to! “Such liberties,” declares Mr. HILLES, firmly, “are now assailed by those who advocate the overthrow of the independence of the judiciary.”

Quite true! We concur heartily. But who advocates it? Not the Democratic candidate. He is as sot as the meetin’-house against the recall of judges. Who, then? T. R.? Well, of all things, don’t call him a Democrat!

Better keep in the furrow, Mr. HILLES. Humbug is going to get short shrift in this campaign.

Enthusiasm for Wilson

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, July 2, To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly:

SIR. - I have read HARPER'S almost every week since 1900, not so much for the political suggestions as for the wit and humor of your editorials whether in favor of a man or idea or against them. When you picked Wilson as "a winner" a year or two before the last Democratic convention, I did not think you would prove to be a good prophet. I did not then know the Princeton reformer, but all of us have come to see that you were right and I doff my hat to HARPER’S. Your judgment of men proved to be admirable. Almost every one here, whether in academic circles or not, and regardless of political creed, is enthusiastic about Wilson’s nomination at Baltimore, and many Republicans joined Democrats in telegrams to Bryan and others in the convention urging the nomination of the New Jersey Governor. For my part it seems that the Democratic party has won a new lease of life by this wise and progressive move. Public opinion in this part of Chicago is well-nigh unanimous for him. You deserve much of the Republic for calling its attention to this remarklable leader and statesman.

I am, sir,

WILLIAM E. DODD.

JULY 27, 1912

To Resign or Not to Resign

The resignation of Governor WILSON has not yet been received. It is curious how many good reasons can be found for not doing a thing which one does not want to do. -Newark "Sunday Call."

There is no personal reason why Governor WILSON should resign if he doesn’t want to. Governor CLEVELAND didn’t. Party considerations, however, deserve to be and apparently are being taken into account. If Mr. WILSON should resign now, New Jersey would almost surely elect a Democrat as his successor in November, for a full term of three years. If he should resign after November 5th, the president of the state Senate would succeed him for the unexpired term of one year. The present Senate is Republican. Whether the next one will be is a question. The chances seem to be about even. Advice in such a case amounts to little, because the advisers are pretty certain to recommend either what they themselves want or what they think the recipient wants. It is a question which Mr. WILSON will have to decide for himself. Whichever determination he reaches can evoke no just criticism.

AUGUST 3, 1912.

A Response in Advance

The Baltimore Evening News quotes the following from the Democratic platform:

We believe in the preservation and maintenance in their full strength and integrity of the three coordinate branches of the federal government - the executive, the legislative, and the judicial, each keeping within his own bounds and not encroaching upon the just powers of either of the others.

It then inquires:

This plank virtually pledges Governor WILSON, in event of his election, to keep his hands off the legislative branch of government. It cannot mean anything else if it is to mean anything at all.

Now, what is he to do as President? Will he agree to the pledge of his party platform not to interfere with the intents and purposes of Congress, or will he repudiate that plank and use the “big stick”?

On August 20, 1911, Mr. WILSON was quoted in this journal as follows:

When I was running for Governor I frankly said that, if elected. I should take my election as a mandate to lead; a declaration by the people of New Jersey that I was required to be the leader of the state, the single lever for the executive control of its government. My opponent said that, if elected, he intended to be a “constitutional” Governor, that he would make recommendations to the legislature, and then leave the legislature alone to decide whether his recommendations should be carried into effect. I said that if that was what was meant by being a “constitutional” Governor I intended. if e ected. to be an “unconstitutional” Governor; for I should hold that I had a mandate from the people of the state not only to recommend reforms, but to use every honorable means in my power to have them made into laws. I offered myself as a leader and the people of New Jersey accepted my offer.

That is the answer.

Big Politics

Dr. WILSON's election means-

If Dr. WILSON were elected-

In short, were Dr. WILSON elected-

As with the tariff, if Dr WILSON were elected-

Dr. WILSON has been at the head-

While Dr. WILSON has been Governor-

T.R. in the "Outlook."

WOODROW WILSON has been the head of the New Jersey state government for nearly two years. Most people refer to him as Governor. But not your canny THEODORE. Why? do you suppose. The answer is easy. It is because he thinks the Plain People distrust all high-brows or learned men as being out of touch with themselves, and so he shrewdly utilizes every opportunity to recall to their minds the fact that the Democratic candidate was once a college professor. Ain't he the cute one?

AUGUST 10, 1912

In Fine Form

MARSE HENRY is in fine form again. For the time being he is out of the awful slough of Kentucky politics that no one but a Kentuckian understands, and speaks again on outside topics. Hear him:

WOODROW WILSON could not escape election if he tried. He will sweep the country. We engage to bet the Sun, state by state, a dinner on each state that he carries every state in the Union.

That’s a bet of upward of fifty dinners. Think of the fine constitutional stability of a man who would bet fifty dinners on one election; all of them, of course, to be paid for and eaten.

Again he says:

Either the writer of the World’s tariff articles should be “bored for the simples,” or else holes should be dug in the golden dome to let the darkness out.

That is because the World has not squared what the ranking Colonel in all Kentucky conceives to be sound Democratic doctrine on tariff. The language in which General SHERMAN defined war suffices Colonel WATTERSON to define the protective tariff, and any Democrat who varies much from that definition had better not let MARSE HENRY catch him.

"The Commoner's" Future

Speculation as to happenings to follow November 5th strikes us as somewhat premature, but the following from the observant Savannah News is worth passing notice:

There is speculation as to whether or not Mr. BRYAN would be offered a place in the Cabinet if Governor WILSON should be elected President. The fact that he has contributed one thousand dollars to the Democratic campaign fund will have the effect probably of stimulating this speculation.

Governor WILSON would undoubtedly feel under considerable obligation to Mr. BRYAN, but he isn't the sort of a man to let a personal obligation of any sort interfere with what he believed to be his duty to himself, his party, and the people generally. If he believed that Mr. BRYAN was the best man in the party for Secretary of State or Secretary of the Treasury or for any other Cabinet position he wouldn't hesitate to invite him into his Cabinet, not because of any service he might have rendered him in getting the nomination at Baltimore or in the campaign, but simply because of his ability to contribute to the success of his administration.

As a matter of fact, Governor WILSON owes nothing to Mr. BRYAN thus far. Mr. BRYAN didn’t advocate his nomination. He planned to bring about his own nomination at Baltimore, and his plan failed, mainly because the WILSON boom got away from him. In the campaign that is just beginning Mr. BRYAN may render such good service that he may place his party under obligation to him, but if he does, Governor WILSON will not sacrifice any personal or party interest to reward him. In shaping his administration, in the event of his election, he will regard Mr. BRYAN as only so much material available for the positions to be filled.

It is close to the bull’s-eye, in our cautious judgment.

An English View by Sydney Brooks

One of the pleasantest results of Mr. Woodrow Wilson’s nomination - I am looking at it from a purely British standpoint - is that there is now at last some chance of placing the relations between the Democratic party and the outside world on a basis of mutual understanding. For the past sixteen years the Democrats have been as much alienated from foreign as from American opinion: but to-day, in Great Britain at any rate, through all the innumerable comments evoked by the Chicago and Baltimore conventions, there runs a clear strain of congratulation on the all-round improvement in Democratic prospects and policies.

The weakness of many American public men is that they have never been grounded in the fundamentals of political science. They rarely impart the sense of a solid, mellow background of reading, culture, and philosophy. Their politics is usually the politics of personalities and committee-rooms. It seemed to me no small part of Governor Wilson’s strength that he had not only as a student got to the bottom of things, had not only as a writer and professor applied his knowledge to the discussion, criticism, and illumination of tangible measures and events, had not only superadded a sustained and all-round experience in the daily work of administering a great university, but also that he was a man whose politics was the politics of ideas and of their embodiment in legislation. If he is elected in November, as I take it for granted he will be, the White House for the first time since the Civil War, and for the second time in American history, will be occupied by one who may fairly be called a political thinker. In talking politics with Governor Wilson one instinctively talks not of men, but of measures; not of “politics,” but of the ways and means of statesmanship. His campaign for the Governorship of New Jersey seemed to me of a character unique in American electioneering. There was none of the usual party claptrap and vituperation, no effort to keep alive meaningless party lines and traditions, no dealing in sonorous generalities. From first to last Mr. Wilson appealed to reason and to conscience. He discussed nothing but specific and ponderable issues, and on each one of them he showed just where he stood. In language that the most ignorant could understand and the most fastidious could appreciate and be stirred by, with innumerable happy side flashes of humor and illustration, keeping always to a high elevation of thought and feeling and practicality, and eloquent with the eloquence that is only born of conviction and sincerity, Mr. Wilson laid bare the abuses of New Jersey politics and industrial organization, clearly outlined his programme for their reform, and asked from all who cared for the good name of theirstate the support that would enable him to carry it out. Republicans and Democrats flocked to the meetings of this university president who saw and spoke so clearly and stated what he proposed to do so frankly and modestly; Republicans and Democrats joined on polling-day in electing him by a triumphant majority. To-day for the first time since I, at any rate, have had the pleasure of knowing it, New Jersey is a selfgoverning state and its statute-book is beginning to show some approach to justice and humanity and some appreciation of the requirements of a modern community. Even in England we were able to follow the Governor's fight with the machine with intelligence and understanding.

I do not think that since his election Mr. Wilson has done or said anything that did not show the real stuff of statesmanship. For all his years in the lecture-room there is nothing "donnish" about him. His manner is utterly unpretentious, even in its geniality; his rich, clear flow of talk is flecked with a sunny and spontaneous humor; his whole bearing speaks of alertness, zest, and of confident energy guided by patient reflectiveness. I do not know any American with a wider or a sharper vision or one so intolerant of shams, haziness, and the specious forms and aspects of things that pass muster as realities. If any one can knit the heterogeneous units of the Democratic party into a single, effective whole, it is surely he; and, like all other Englishmen, I should like to offer my congratulations to his countrymen on bringing forward such a man at such an hour.

AUGUST 17,1912

Progress of the Campaign

It was a thoroughly democratic and very polite audience of some thousands that gathered at Sea Girt to listen to Governor WILSON’S soothing speech of acceptance. Senator JAMES, in making the formal notification, took occasion to lambaste the predatories in true Kentucky fashion, but the candidate abused nobody, criticized gently, and generally took a markedly philosophical view of conditions and needs. Indeed, his speech primarily was most noticeable for what he refrained from saying. He hardly mentioned the Republican party and he paid no attention whatever to the BRYAN platform. If he felt that Mr. TAFT had shown poor taste, to put it mildly, in trying to link him with ROOSEVELT, he gave no sign. He made his initial statement that he should speak “not to catch votes, but to satisfy the thought and conscience of a people deeply stirred by the conviction that they have come to a critical turning-point in their moral and political development.” He outlined no programme; he hardly touched upon specific issues; he merely portrayed in clear and beautiful phrase the crux of his own beliefs. And the key of his appealing utterance was the spirit, not of strife and destruction, but of patriotic co-operation.

“The Nation,” he declared, “has been unnecessarily, unreasonably at war within itself, when there were common principles of right and of fair dealing which might and should have bound them all together, not as rivals, but as partners. As the servants of all, we are bound to undertake the great duty of accommodation and adjustment.”

Instead of urging citizens, as Mr. TAFT urged them, to vote in a certain way to win back prosperity, he pointed the wider way.

“What we are seeking,” he said. “is not destruction of any kind, nor the destruction of any sound or honest thing, but merely the rule of right and of common advantage." Again, “It would be a chapter of readjustment, not of pain and rough disturbance.” And again, “Our task now is to effect a great adjustment, and get the forces of the Whole people once more into play. We need no revolution; we need no excited change; we need only a new point of view and a new method and spirit of counsel."

He paid an ungrudging, though perhaps unconscious, tribute to the chief achievement of the TAFT administration in proving to business men that rigid enforcement of laws is not necessarily incompatible with business good and business success.

“It is a happy omen,” he remarked. "that their attitude has changed. They now see that what is right can hurt no man; that a new adjustment of interests is inevitable and desirable in the interest of everybody; that their own honor, their own intelligence, their own practical comprehension of affairs, are involved. They are beginning to adjust their business to the new standards.”

He regarded the tariff from the same viewpoint. After declaring with emphasis that “there should be an immediate revision, and it should be downward, unhesitatingly and steadily downward,” he defined the correct method as follows:

“It should begin with the schedules which have been most obviously used to kill competition and to raise prices in the United States, arbitrarily and without regard to the prices pertaining elsewhere in the markets of the world; and it should, before it is finished or intermitted, be extended to every item in every schedule which affords any opportunity for monopoly, for special advantage to limited groups of beneficiaries, or for subsidized control of any kind in the markets or the enterprises of the country; until special favors of every sort shall have been absolutely withdrawn and every part of our laws of taxation shall have been transformed from a system of governmental patronage into a system of just and reasonable charges which shall fall where they will create the least burden. When we shall have done that, we can fix questions of revenue and of business adjustment in a new spirit and with clear minds. We shall then be partners with all the business men of the country, and a day of freer, more stable prosperity shall have dawned.”

There may be a way to take reasonable exception to this proposal, but if so it is yet to be discovered by the Republican papers which have undertaken to find a basis of criticism.

The most important phase of Governor WILSON’s declaration is that which bears upon his personal attitude. These are his words:

“We represent the desire to set up an unentangled government, a government that cannot be used for private purposes, either in the field of business or in the field of politics; a government that will not tolerate the use of the organization of a great party to serve the personal aims and ambitions of any individual, and that will not permit legislation to be employed to further any private interest. It is a great conception, but I am free to serve it, as you also are. I could not have accepted a nomination which left me bound to any man or any group of men. No man can be just who is not free, and no man who has to show favors ought to undertake the solemn responsibility of government in any rank or post whatever, least of all in the supreme post of President of the United States.”

They are good words, voicing a conception that is not only great but noble; and their immediate value is enhanced immeasurably by the undeniable truth of the simple declaration, “I am free.” Therein lies the heart of the strength of WOODROW WILSON as a candidate before the people.

The Republican papers complain bitterly that Mr. WILSON gave them nothing that they can get hold of. It is true; he didn’t. He presented his Constitution for inspection and consideration; his by-laws will be submitted later in segregated form. The method is novel, to be sure - indeed, almost “original” as the slightly dazed and wholly unoriginal BRYAN remarks - but contrasted with the customary, tiresome protestations of this, that, and all other good things under the sun it certainly impresses us, along with the public generally, as being distinctly refreshing.

August 17, 1912

A Hint, We Hope, in Time

We respectfully suggest to the directors of the Democratic canvass that WILLIAM H, TAFT is not the man whom WOODROW WILSON has to beat.

An Unusual Speech of Acceptance

The remarks of the newspapers about Governor WILSON’s speech of acceptance, particularly of such as have felt they must find fault with it, are decidedly out of the common. We all remember what was once said of another Democratic candidate: “ We love him for the enemies he has made.” Similarly, even if one had not read Governor WILSON’s speech, one would be disposed to like it for the kind of criticism it has provoked.

What is said of it by the opposing editors? So far as we have observed, there are substantially two arraignments, and for the life of us we cannot find them very withering. The Governor’s address is found to be gentlemanly! It is also found to be modest! It departs egregiously from our present-day usage by avoiding epithets and violence. It also sinks contemptibly below the accepted standard for candidates in-that it does not even pretend to solve all our problems and offer remedies for all our ills. Let us concede at once - for, indeed, we must - that both these criticisms are correct. There is no denying them. The speech, inexplicable as it seems, was entirely polite, perfectly well-bred, and dignified. Stranger still, it actually contained such astounding confessions as that there were things the candidate did not know all about, and that he felt the need of counsel and meant to seek it!

With another utterance from another candidate ringing almost simultaneously in its ears, what could the country think of such an attitude? Could it feel otherwise than disappointed? Could it possibly value six thousand quiet words set against twenty thousand loud ones? Could it afford to listen to a man who promised but few things and confessed his limitations when here was another man gifted with omniscience and promising everything?

Well, surprisingly enough, it would - and we think it did. Governor WILSON has successfully employed a method of oratory and of leadership which has many times proved its efficiency. In a time of turmoil and blatancy he has made himself heard by forbearing to shout. In a time of scrambling self-assertion, of unlimited panaceas and programmes, he has made himself impressive by his unpretentiousness, convincing by his selfrestraint.

What Wilson Promises

So much for what the Democratic candidate refrains from saying - for that is practically the sole burden of his opponents’ criticism. It is almost entirely negative. Rarely, indeed, has so important a public utterance evoked such wide-spread approval of what it did contain.

And it contained much. Moderate as it was in length, and quiet in manner, it succeeded in confessing an ample political faith and in outlining a comprehensive purpose. It interpreted - we believe correctly - the temper of the time, and correctly described the state of the country. Becoming constructive and practical, it then dealt, as it should have done, not with specific measures, but with policies. The sum of its achievement was this: that it gave us all to understand what kind of an administration of our affairs we may expect if Governor WILSON shall be President, and if his party shall follow where he leads.

We may expect readjustment, but not revolution. That is the keynote of the WILSON's new point of view and a new method and spirit of counsel,” but no “excited change.” Governor WILSON is for meeting the changed conditions of our life candidly, and with new laws - radical laws, if you please - but not with a new and strange form of government.

We may expect the one great reform we have fully discussed and resolved on - tariff revision downward - made, indeed, without vindictivcness or violence; but, nevertheless, “unhesitatingly and steadily downward.”

We may expect a policy with the trusts and other great industrial combinations and confederacics equally firm for justice, yet equally free from any impulse of mere destructiveness; laws to prevent and punish unfairness and wrongdoing, but none against mere bigness, none to arrest the natural course of economic development.

We may expect a conservation policy which will conserve without more hoarding; which will prevent waste and robbery of our natural wealth, but permit and encourage the proper use of it.

We may expect a revision of our laws of currency and banking, to make our system more elastic, more modern and scientific, and more responsive to all the needs of business.

We may expect, if we ourselves have the virtue to play our part in the change, the proper working of representative government - the true “rule of the people” through public servants brought again into a right sense of loyalty to the entire public. And in the highest place of all, we may expect a leadership at once resolute and entirely democratic; ready to learn and be advised, but of good faith and courage; a leadership by consent and counsel, but nevertheless an authoritative and fearless spokesmanship of the people.

That is what we understand Governor WILSON to have resolved and promised when he accepted the nomination for the Presidency and the headship of his party.

AUGUST 24, 1912

As to Mr. Schiff

The Tribune wants to know "just how far west of the Hudson River will Governor WILSON wish to spread the glad tidings of the accession of Mr. JACOB H. SCHIFF to his standard?" And we take the liberty of replying that there is no reason why he should not rejoice to have the information spread all over the country. A better, broader, or more patriotic citizen than JACOB H. SCHIFF does not exist in these United States - and nobody knows that better than the Tribune. No humbug, now.

Correct

Dr. WILSON, although he is an able man and no doubt regards himself as a safe man, is, nevertheless, plainly touched by the progressive disease. -Hartford "Courant"

Touched? Why, bless you, he is incurable!

SEPTEMBER 14, 1912

Progress of the Campaign

Governor WILSON has formally opened his campaign by a short excursion into Pennsylvania and a speech before the Woodrow Wilson Workingmen's League in New York, his first political address in that city since his nomination. In Pennsylvania he was received with great enthusiasm, and although it was not on the programme that he should make any rear-platform speeches, the people insisted on his talking, and wherever the train stopped there were cheering crowds to encourage him. It was not alone the enthusiasm, which was very marked, but the thoughtful attitude of his audiences that impressed the men who were carefully watching the reception accorded the Governor. The principal speech was at Williams Grove at a farmers’ picnic, and taking the Pennsylvania farmer as a rule he is hard-headed and intelligent, slow to move, but with a mind of his own, ready to listen to argument but able to think for himself. Governor WILSON has set a good many of those farmers to thinking.

At Williams Grove Governor WILSON referred to Mr. ROOSEVELT'S conversion to protection - “I say a convert because he at one time very frankly avowed a different opinion,” the Governor said - and then proceeded to discuss Mr. ROOSEVELT'S rather injudicious characterization of protection as "prize money.” In Vermont Mr. ROOSEVELT had told an audience that the prize money received by the manufacturers was legitimate booty. The analogy is a very interesting one. the Governor said, and he continued:

“Prize money is generally acquired by capture and not by any process of earning, but Mr. ROOSEVELT is always frank and says that his only objection to the system is that too much of the prize money remains in the hands of the officers, and too little of it is distributed to the crew. His own object, he avows, is to see to it that more of the prize money gets into the pay envelopes of those whom the freebooters employ. The interesting point I wish to raise now is, who supplies the plunder? From whom is the prize money taken? I suspect that a vast proportion of it comes out of the pockets of the farmer, unwillingly enough, no doubt, but inevitably, for I see in him that great helpless class, the unbenefited consumer."

Mr. ROOSEVELT is proud of his many gifts and accomplishments, but the thing that he takes the greatest pride in is his skill as a phrase-maker. and nothing delights him more than to rake over some one else’s discarded thoughts and palm them off as something brand new. “Prize money” sounds well and is just the sort of coinage to appeal to a mixed audience, but it is going to plague its maker before the campaign is over. Sometimes Mr. ROOSEVELT unconsciously tells the truth and strips away humbug, and he has done so in this instance. Nothing could be more correct than to liken the Republican doctrine of protection - which is one of the doctrines Mr. ROOSEVELT has appropriated as his own - to “prize money.” for prize money isn’t money for which an equivalent is given, but is money taken by force, just as the profits allowed by protection are forcibly taken from the helpless consumer. Prize money is just a little bit more respectable than piracy, but not much, and the line is about as fine as the inordinate profits allowed by protection and the illegal gains of usury. Prize money - Mr. GEORGE W. PERKINS is a good authority on the subject, by the way - is an excellent theme for Democratic speakers, and Governor WILSON has shown his ability as a campaigner in having at once brought it to public attention.

The Democratic campaign thus far has been well managed and has made good progress. The difference between the Republican, the Bull Moose, and the Democratic campaigns, and the three men who are their party representatives, is symbolized by their speeches and their actions. Mr. TAFT resorts to silence - the apathy of despair. Mr. TAFT knows that he is defeated, and he looks defeat in the face manfully and with dignified resignation. The Bull Moose fears defeat, but tries to escape from his fears in a fury of sound. He must talk, for without his talk there would be little left to the campaign, and the special correspondents attached to his show report that oxygen tanks have been installed in his private car so as to be able to pump him full of gas in case of emergency. We had a suspicion that the Bull Moose campaign was in a bad way, but when the doctors bring oxygen cylinders into the sick-room it is about time for the obituary writers to overhaul their material. Pretty soon the Colonel will be given doses of brandy under a physician's directions, and then what will Dr. LYMAN ABBOTT do and what will become of his milk certificate? Between Mr. TAFT'S grim silence and Mr. ROOSEVELT'S grotesque campaigning Governor WILSON has thus far pursued the safe middle course of a few well-phrased addresses. His speeches are not “dashing”; men do not stand on their heads, carried away by his oratory or break into song, but they go away with something to think about, and that is the test of every appeal. In this campaign the speech is the man and what he stands for and the result that is to be: Mr. TAFT speechless and the party impotent; Mr. ROOSEVELT vociferating explosively, and his party rushing about aimlessly, snatching at everything and able to hold nothing; Governor WILSON, of measured utterance, thoughtfully speaking to thoughtful men who are tired of a party that does nothing and distrustful of a party whose principles are too elastic to command respect.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1912

Dix, Murphy, et Al.

The Democratic political episode at Syracuse was a cheap-John affair. Governor Dix's obvious attempt to tuck Mr. WILSON into seeming approval of his candidacy was even more discreditable than Mr. MURPHY'S cunning effort to get his picture taken in happy and helpful company.

Governor WILSON could hardly have acted differently. One is not obliged to be a goat even to avoid seeming rudeness. But the situation itself would never have arisen if the campaign management had possessed an atom of experience or capacity. The midst of a great campaign is no time and a critical state is no place for the rousing of unnecessary antagonism through the snubbing of individuals. If Mr. WILSON feels that Governor DIX's renomination would endanger the national ticket, he has a perfect right to say so, and perhaps should say so, as in duty bound, frankly and manfully. But there is no reason why a Presidential candidate should permit himself to be dragged into factional quarrels at all either to help a local aspirant or to gratify important newspapers. When it comes to campaign management, MURPHY does not seem to hold a complete monopoly of what the World calls stupidity.

The Difference

The discussion of "WILSON's second term" in HARPER'S WEEKLY seems to be about as wanton a waste of good printer's ink as anything the country has ever seen. -The "Evening Moose-Mail."

It may be wasteful, but it surely lacks the wantonness involved in advocating a third term for T. ROOSEVELT or anybody else.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1912

Echoes

KEEPING AT IT

In other words, Colonel Harvey raps the Democratic rainbow-chasers. He foresees danger and knows Presidential elections are not Won at headquarters, at little White Houses, in twenty-eight-story buildings, nor yet on private yachts, nor in the clubs of the editorials. The colonel notes the all-wise editorials of the New York Democratic newspapers which flippantly argue that the Roosevelt movement is all froth, while their news columns note that the colonel spoke to thousands on his late tour through New England, supposedly an “enemy’s country” for T. R.

Meanwhile, he is doing his level best to stir the Democratic directors to work - Johnston “Tribune.”

TWO PREDICTIONS

HARPER’s WEEKLY warns the Democrats not to underestimate the strength of the Bull Moose, intimating that he may be a closer competitor than Taft. Colonel Harvey has proved himself something of a political prophet in the past, but it does not follow that he understands the situation in the country at large in 1912 as he did the situation in New Jersey in 1910, when he predicted the election of Wilson as Governor by substantially the majority which he actually received. Unless the Republican party has gone to pieces completely, Taft will get practical all the electoral votes that do not go to Governor Wilson. -San Antonio "Express."

THE MAN TO BEAT

In a recent issue, HARPER’s WEEKLY makes this wise suggestion:

“We respectfully suggest to the directors of the Democratic canvass that William H. Taft is not the man whom Woodrow Wilson has to beat.”

It is well to reiterate that those who are in the habit of belittling the efforts of Theodore Roosevelt, blusterer and bluffer though he be, will probably be very much surprised at the result of the November election.

Judging from conditions as they exist now, as far as it is humanly possible to forecast elections, it looks now that Woodrow Wilson will be overwhelmingly elected. It would create no surprise if he carried twothirds or three-fourths of the states. Still the baneful influence of Roosevelt's personality has been so potent that he will no doubt get a very large popular vote in nearly every section of the country, and will be very likely to get the electoral vote of several states.

Doubtless, HARPER’s WEEKLY is right; Taft is not the man Governor Wilson has to beat. -Pensacola "Journal."

KEEP TOGETHER! GET BUSY

HARPER’s WEEKLY advises the Democrats to make no mistake, and that it is not Taft but Roosevelt they have to fight. This is a long cast into the stream, but it may be wise, Roosevelt has had some astonishing successes. He has been able not simply to turn defeat into victory, but actually to make defeat appear to be victory. His last performance is of this kind; and we do not know how many people will believe it.

The Democratic press appears inclined to ridicule Mr. Roosevelt’s pretensions; but it would be better to give serious warning to the people, lest it be imagined that the campaign is already won. -Mobile “Register.”

“A VOTE FOR WILSON"

For several weeks, in HARPER’s WEEKLY, Colonel Harvey has been quietly tipping the Governor of New Jersey that to win the Presidency he will not have to beat Mr. Taft. Evidently the advice has not gone astray, and if more proof were needed than Colonel Harvey’s word, it comes from the Vermont election. The Knickerbocker Press has called attention many times to the fact that something is happening in national politics. After Vermont it seems almost certain that the tip will go out from Republican national headquarters before another month has passed to beat Roosevelt. The only way to beat Theodore Roosevelt, it may appear. will be to vote for Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt is by no means elected President of the United States at this time, but, as they say in the melodramas, if Governor Wilson makes one false step, all is lost. -Knickerbocker "Press."

Mr. Hilles at Work

Hello! WILSON is a traitor. Mr. HILLES made the startling discovery last Sunday. TAFT having carried Texas and the election being over, the Republican chairman took up his well-thumbed copy of the History of the American People, and his eagle eye lit like the business end of a wasp on the following paragraph:

The proclamation, when it came, was no law, but only his [LINCOLN's] deliberate declaration of policy for himself and for his party; and changed, as he meant that it should change, the whole air of the struggle and of politics as well.

Mr. HILLES threw up his hands; he was shocked. Then he took pen feverishly in hand and wrote:

It is safe to say that not even the most radical unreconstructed Southern man would attribute to LINCOLN this motive, which it remained for the historian WOODROW WILSON alone to discover, that LINCOLN abolished slavery to further his own political ambitions and those of his political party.

Yes indeed, it is quite safe to say that. It is equally safe, possibly although preposterously silly, to say that WILSON wrote that LINCOLN issued the Emancipation Proclamation to "further his own political ambitions," when he never wrote anything of the kind. What he did write and what Mr. HILLES quotes - namely, that President LINCOLN seized the opportunity to clarify the whole situation by adopting a war measure to solidify the moral sentiment of the North - is the exact fact, President TAFT put the case quite clearly, on the same day that Mr. HILLES had his fit, in these words:

Mr. LINCOLN suffered greatly by the criticism and abuse of those who thought he did not act quickly enough in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and later from the attacks of those who thought the act was a great mistake. Now, as we look back upon it, we realize that his selection of the time was most fortunate. He delayed action until he could take it as a war measure under the Constitution and could defend what he did as within his lawful power as commander-in-chief of the army and navy in the prosecution of the war.

The emancipation did not free all the slaves. It could not free those who were in territory not within the arena of war, but after he had issued this proclamation the completion of the steps needed to secure the abolition of slavery as a constitutional amendment was a necessity and only a matter of time. It is right, then, that LINCOLN should be held up in history as the man chiefly responsible for the freedom of the negro.

If Mr. HILLES had seen this first, he might have been spared his spasm. Even so, we dare say nothing could have prevented him from adding that “apparently, if he could,” Governor WILSON “would close every American mill and buy in foreign markets, because, in the first place, he is an aristocrat born and bred, and because he wants the American people to buy where they can buy the cheapest.”

It is pretty terrible, no doubt, that one should want the American pegple to buy where they can buy the cheapest, but that one should wish so “because he is an aristocrat” - i.e., the son of a hard-working, under-paid Presbyterian minister - is incalculably worse.

Mr. HILLES has our sympathy. Moreover, as everybody is remarking these days, “Poor Mr. ------!” Never mind who.

Hot Air in Kansas

The following is from the press report of Mr. ROOSEVELT'S speech in Topeka:

He insisted that Mr. WILSON'S knowledge of what he did when President was gained in the seclusion of the classroom at a time "when Mr. WILSON was still taking the position of an ultra-conservative and was being carefully groomed for the Presidency by GEORGE HARVEY and other representatives of the Wall Street interests."

It is difficult to see what difference it makes where Mr. Wilson acquired his knowledge; the important thing is that he got it, and has it still, as the Colonel is finding out, somewhat to his annoyance.

If, in the midst of his aerification of bleeding Kansas, the Colonel can derive satisfaction from designating us as a “representative of Wall Street interests,” the pleasure, in the words of Mr. WEBER to Mr. FIELDS, is all his. No, not quite. A little must be spared to his seventh little Governor, the Hon. CHASE S. OSBORN, of Michigan.

The difference between the two seems to be that the Governor’s moral obliquity is buried in his mental obtuseness, while the Colonel stands forth as depicted by DRYDEN:

“A man so various that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,

Was everything by starts and nothing long;

But in the course of one revolving moon

Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.”

The Answer

Fact 1. TAFT cannot be elected.

Fact 2. ROOSEVELT can be elected.

Fact 3. WILSON might be elected. -BROTHER MUNSEY

Ergo, vote for WILSON.

Philip Sober

ROOSEVELT says:

The key to Mr. WILSON'S position is found in his statement that "the history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not of the increase of it." This is a bit of outworn academic doctrine which was kept in the schoolroom and the professorial study for a generation after it had been abandoned by all who had experience of actual life.

Mr. WILSON'S declaration is undoubtedly the "key to his position." It was the key, moreover, of the position of the American people when they recognized in their fundamental law that a majority, no less than a king, may become tyrannous, and enacted the great constitutional decree forbidding the taking of property without due process of law, guaranteeing equal protection under the law, safeguarding the freedom of speech and the press, and in all other ways preserving the personal liberties which they had won by revolution against the exercise of too great governmental power.

Progress of the Campaign

Governor WILSON has been going strong through the Middle West and talking in plain fashion to his audiences, who evidently like that kind of talk and are willing to hear as much of it as the Governor can give them. At Logansport, Indiana, he paid his respects to one of the G. O. P. derelicts. There was a time when former Senator BEVERIDGE believed that Destiny with outstretched hand was leading him to the White House, but Destiny either got tired of the job or took up with a more promising protege, and Mr. BEVERIDGE is now content to be a humble follower working in the Bull Moose pasture with visions of perhaps an embassy, or even - for anything may happen on a pirate ship - a seat at the captain's table. Mr. BEVERIDGE was perturbed that if Governor WILSON is elected President he will be “boss controlled.” To allay this fear, which really must be very disturbing to Mr. BEVERIDGE when he thinks of the unbossed third-termer, Governor WILSON said: “The way you can tell whether a man is going to be controlled by the bosses or not is to judge whether he is in reach of a boss or not.” and then the Governor gave this concise definition of a boss:

"A boss is a political agent of certain special interests, who see to it, through him, that people they can control are put in office, and that laws they don’t want are kept off the statute-books; and the men who do that are the men who are interested in the great monopolies of this country."

Having given the definition, it is a pity Governor WILSON did not follow it up with a practical illustration. “For instance,” Governor WILSON might have added, "the special interests that put Mr. ROOSEVELT into the Presidency by subscribing to his corruption fund did not want the tariff reduced, so Mr. ROOSEVELT, although he was in office for more than seven years, kept a revised tariff law off the statute-books." Governor WILSON’s long experience in the classroom ought to convince him that the easiest way to convey knowledge is by a concrete example.

Crowds are deceptive. Nothing is so easy as to draw a crowd, nothing so easily throws even the best-balanced man off his feet as the presence of a large, enthusiastic, and cheering audience. “There has never been such a turn-out at a political gathering since Jackson spoke,” one self-important committeeman, recalling hoary tradition, tells the candidate; “you made the circus look like a lawn fete of the First Baptist Church," another tells him, and the candidate would be less than human and more than mortal if he didn’t believe it and wasn't able to convince himself that the whole village or town or city was unanimous for him. Making due allowance, therefore, still it is not without significance that Governor WILSON has had musing audiences on his tour, some of the veterans going so far as to say that the enthusiasm for the Governor exceeded that when Mr. BRYAN was in the height of his fame and could sweep an assemblage off its feet by a mass of uncooked platitudes delivered in a sonorous voice. There is curiosity, of course, to see and hear Governor WILSON, curiosity because he is the candidate of his party, because of the dramatic rapidity with which he has come to the front, because of the things he has done and the courage he has shown, because he peculiarly appeals to popular imagination and offers the people not only promise, but brings them inspiration; and after curiosity has been satisfied he makes a higher appeal. He talks common sense and his words ring true. The good impression he made in Pennsylvania has been deepened by his tour of the West. There is no complaint this year on the part of political managers that General Apathy is in the saddle. The people are keen to be enlightened and are doing their own thinking.

The third-termer complains that Governor WILSON is following “an outworn philosophy.” To a man who has thrown honor into the scrap-heap and regards truth as a joke and honesty a discarded virtue a great many things besides philosophy must seem to be “out worn,” but the great public stubbornly clings to the fundamentals.

OCTOBER 12, 1912

A message to the West

We have received the following communication from a resident of Des Moines, Iowa, who is engaged actively in business:

To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly:

SIR, - I am an ardent admirer of President TAFT. I firmly believe him to be entitled to another term and hope that the Republicans will come to their senses in time to give him the party vote as he deserves, for the party vote will elect him, without doubt. In the event that he is not to have the indorsement of the voters and it goes to Mr. WILSON, as it certainly will if President TAFT is defeated, what is to be the attitude of the business world of the East toward the New Jersey man? Is there nervousness that will lead to trouble? Have the people overcome that mental attitude that does so much toward making trouble when there is a Democratic President? There is now so much wealth distributed all over this Republic, we are getting so far away from that narrowness that formerly decreed that with a Democrat in the Presidency there must be depression, that it seems things ought to go along just as well with WILSON, Democrat though he is, as with any other reputable man in the office. Have we become great enough to recognize that a Democrat can be a patriot and intends to do the very best possible for his country? I was raised a Republican and for many years thought that to elect a Democrat meant a panic. I have none of that feeling now, but how about the people generally? It is the mass of men and women who determine such things, and their mental attitude will control. Can HARPER’S tell us what is likely to occur in the East if the election results favorably to WOODROW WILSON?

I am, sir,

C. C. PUGH.

And we reply: There is no apprehension whatever in this part of the country of unhappy consequences ensuing from Governor WILSON’s election. The Republican and ROOSEVELT papers are doing their best to scare the voters, but everybody realizes that they are only tugging at their bootstraps. It is an old game and it is played out.

The fact is, Mr. PUGH, that folks hereabouts have grown, not merely skeptical, but weary, of fatuous iterations that one-half of our people want to ruin their own and their country’s industries. Nothing will “happen” here when it becomes known that Wilson has won. But deep down in the hearts of all thoughtful men who have their stake in common prosperity there will be intense relief and much rejoicing - relief at the downfall of a dangerous upstart and rejoicing over the inversion of the pyramid of popular government which the Republican oligarchy has kept standing so long and so perilously upon its apex. Governor WILSON is not the only one who will “thank God and take courage.” He will have as company his entire community.

If by any chance you should surmise that our judgment to this effect is colored by our desire, we ask you, Mr. PUGH, to read what President TAFT said yesterday. He congratulated the country upon “existing prosperity” and the “assurance” of its continuance afforded by quite obvious confidence among business men. Now when you consider - as, of course, you must be aware - that these business men now fully anticipate the election of Governor WILSON, you can easily draw your own conclusions respecting their state of mind.

Instead of a panic there will ensue an era of exceptional prosperity, not for a single year as a consequence of bumper crops, but of long duration because of a firm conviction in the minds of the people that its basis will be sound and that its blessings will be shared by all in such proportions as may conform to the just rewards of individual efforts under laws which confer special privileges upon none.

A Pertinent Query

Can anybody imagine WILLIAM H. TAFT, while he was running for the Presidency, writing from the White House such subtle and at the same time such purposeful letters calculated to wring money from a stone as were written to the late Mr. E. H. HARRIMAN in 1904? Can anybody imagine WILLIAM MCKINLEY doing it or GROVER CLEVELAND, CHESTER A. ARTHUR, JAMES A. GARFIELD, RUTHERFORD B HAYES, or ULYSSES S. GRANT? - The "Herald."

Or - what is more to the point - WOODROW WILSON?

The Difference

If you want to maintain the prosperity of America, if you want to keep the farmers prosperous, and the savings-banks accounts full, and the insurance policies from lapsing, and the twenty-five million children in school, and all the opportunities of this land, of which I am sure you are all proud, vote to preserve the public policy of protection for American industry, under which we have grown so great and strong and prosperous, vote for TAFT. -Senator ROOT

And so happy and contented. But the Senator is quite right. If you want to preserve the PAYNE-ALDRICH bill or get another revision upward, vote for TAFT. But if you agree with Governor WILSON when he says:

We don t want to disturb the industry of the country. We are not here to destroy the industry which these men have built up. But we are here to destroy the control over the industry of other people which these men have established and which makes it impossible that we should give ourselves a free field of service -

Then vote for WILSON

OCTOBER 19, 1912

Wilson and Roosevelt on the Trusts

As the campaign has progressed, Governor WILSON’s speeches, instead of falling off, have been steadily gaining in interest and power. They are already a remarkable series of discussions of great public questions. Before he was nominated an eminent college president predicted that if he were named his public discussions alone would prove of incalculable value to the country. The remark is already justified. Not within the memory of the present generation has any candidate for the Presidency done so much to illuminate issues and to clarify public opinion.

There was never much doubt that on the leading issue of the campaign, the tariff, Governor WILSON would be more than a match for his two adversaries. Neither of them has ever shown the slightest mastery of that issue, and the country, moreover, has indicated that it favors the Democratic position. As a result, the Democratic candidate has had a clear and increasing advantage every time the tariff has been touched.

That being obvious, some may therefore be moved to criticize his judgment for giving so much time to the trust issue, for going into it so fully. It may be thought that in this regard it would have been better politics if he had not met ROOSEVELT'S challenge so promptly and completely.

But Governor WILSON was right - right in his judgement as well as in his conscience and his courage. He was right for three reasons. The first is that the tariff issue and the trust issue are, as he has again and again pointed out, inseparable; he is correct in holding that the tariff has been the most potent cause of monopoly in this country, and that that phase of it cannot be neglected. The second reason is that ROOSEVELT’s trust programme, artfully contrived to mislead well-meaning people, demanded analysis and exposure. The third reason was that Governor WILSON knew exactly how to analyze and expose it.

He has done it, and done it so well that nobody should ever need to do it over again. He has done it so well that no intelligent man has any right to be in doubt any longer as to what ROOSEVELT's and PERKINS's trust programme really means. Neither has anybody any excuse for uncertainty as to where Governor WILSON himself stands on this question.

The Issue Absolutely Clear

Those enlightening speeches ought to be read in full by every serious-minded American, concerned for the future of his country. But it seems to us possible to put into a mere paragraph the essence of the matter as Governor WILSON explains it. Indeed, he has by a single phrase put his finger on the heart of the unsoundness of the entire ROOSEVELT proposal. He has called it a proposal “to legalize monopoly.” When that was said, pretty nearly everything was said that was necessary to enable us to condemn the plan. For the phrase is absolutely correct. ROOSEVELT and PERKINS, of course, prefer the word “regulate.” But to regulate is to recognize, it is to accept, it is to validate, it is to legalize. It is, as Governor WILSON has made plain, to condone and to pardon the methods by which monopolies have been established, methods which are at last understood, and can therefore be attacked by law. It is to tie the hands of government. It is in effect to surrender to a thing which democracy has been fighting for centuries.

This is not rhetoric. It is cold fact and clear reasoning. It brings us up with a jerk and makes us realize the actual peril we are confronted with, it makes us see with startling distinctness just what is ahead of us if we are going to follow any longer the leadership of loose-thinking men like ROOSEVELT and his present associates.

Nor is Governor WILSON one whit less clear in stating his own position. He does not, like ROOSEVELT, talk as if he knew all that can be known about this problem of great combinations. He does not treat it as a simple matter or pretend that he and he alone has completely mastered it. But he tells us plainly where he stands and what he will do and what he will not do. He will not, he pledges himself, consent to legalize monopoly without considering the methods by which it has been attained. He will not accept the fact of bigness as a proof by itself of superior economic efficiency. On the contrary, he will do all he can to prevent the achievement of monopoly by unfair methods - and he specifies the methods that are unfair. He will go farther and do all he can to destroy monopolies that have been established by those unfair methods, and not by superior efficiency. He will thus stand for freedom in business, for the freedom of both the big and the little enterprises, He will thus stand for freedom and for real efficiency, and he will stand for honesty and justice.

There is the issue, gentlemen of the electorate. ROOSEVELT says, “Monopoly is inevitable; let us regulate it and try to make the monopolists be good to us.” WILSON says, “Monopoly is not inevitable, except in those industries which economists have all along recognized as ‘natural monopolies.’ The other sort of monopoly I will not recognize. I will not accept it, I will not legalize it. So long as I have breath in my body I will fight it, for in fighting it I am fighting for democracy, I am fighting for freedom, I am fighting for the ideals of this American Republic.”

OCTOBER 26, 1912

Governor Wilson His Own Interpreter

Last week, impressed with the extraordinary excellence of Governor WILSON's speeches on the trust question, this journal and many others had a try at putting his contention into fairly brief editorial paragraphs. Some of us, we think, did pretty well, but for our own part we are quite ready to admit that since our effort Governor WILSON has done the job a lot better himself. Last Friday, at Wheeling, West Virginia, he spoke this paragraph:

I want to say this about the Democratic party programme: The thing that has created the trusts, that has created the monopolies, is unregulated, unfair competition. If we can only bring it about that newcomers shall have a free field, then we can take care of the gentlemen in the trusts, because then the most intelligent competitor will get the market and the little man can grow big instead of making himself big by the legislation of Congress and by special favors from the government. We can do that by having Federal laws thread all this system of ours with statutes which make it criminal to do what these gentlemen did to build up their monopolies and which will see to it that the men who did commit the offenses have time to think it over in some building from which they will not for some time come out. I am not afraid that the penitentiaries will be crowded. Just as soon as the law takes hold of these things and men are behind the law who want to injure nobody in particular, but to administer justice to everybody, then special favors will be withdrawn and there will be another face upon affairs in America.

Evidently Governor WILSON needs neither an interpreter nor a condenser. All he needs is a reporter - and that people should read what he himself has said. We think that most of those who do will agree with us in the judgment that his handling of the trust issue is easily the masterstroke of the campaign.

NOVEMBER 2, 1912

Our Prediction

I

We venture to suggest the nomination of President WOODROW WILSON, of Princeton University, as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. -Harper's Weekly of March 10, 1906.

II

We have a shrewd suspicion that the Democrats of New Jersey will nominate WOODROW WILSON as their candidate for Governor in 1910, with a view to presenting his name to the Democratic national convention of 1912. -Harper's Weekly of November 28, 1908.

III

We now expect to see WOODROW WILSON elected Governor of New Jersey in 1910. -Harper's Weekly of May 15, 1909.

IV

At the expiration of sixteen months since the above appeared in this place we perceive no occasion to revise our calculations. Mr. WILSON'S majority will be forty thousand. -Harper's Weekly of September 21, 1910.

V

We now fully anticipate the nomination of WOODROW WILSON for President of the United States by the Democratic national convention of 1912 as against WILLIAM H. TAFT, Republican candidate. -Harper's Weekly of November 19, 1910.

VI

We end this series of prophecies with a prediction that WOODROW WILSON will be duly elected President of the United States in November next. -Harper's Weekly of July 13, 1912.

VII We now predict that WOODROW WILSON's majority over all in the Electoral College will exceed 300.

(Nola bene: It was 339.)

JANUARY 25 1913

Mr Wilson's Speeches

Isn t it getting to be about time for Wall Street to remove its blue glasses and take a square at the rest of the country? Nobody else is having spasms over Mr. WILSON's speeches. Why should the Street that May Be Straight, but is Called Crooked? And why not try to get things straight, too? Here, for example, is our neighbor, the Sun, whose accuracy of statement is proverbial, printing the following in its financial columns:

In these utterances the man that is to be the next President of our country and is to have a party friendly to him in control of both Houses of the national legislature has declared that the business men of the country are substantially dishonest and must change their hearts; that the banking system of the country stands already “convicted” of heinous and dangerous practices; that society in the country is in need of general reconstruction; and that he, the President-elect, has started out with his war paint on and holds a whip in his hand to hurry the reconstructing process. And he has added that if business disturbance results from all this it will be because capitalists have conspired to bring it about and for which they will deserve to be hanged as high as HAMAN. It has been agreed in defense of Mr. WILSON that in speaking as he did he spoke extemporaneously and was carried away by oratorical afflatus.

Now let us see about this. We have read Mr. WILSON’s speeches, but we found nothing of this sort in them. He did not “declare that the business men of the country are substantially dishonest.” On the contrary, he evinced belief in their integrity and good intentions. But he did say frankly and truly that the country needed to be convinced of their uprightness and unselfishness, and that it was up to them to do the convincing.

There was no novelty in this assertion. Senator ELIHU ROOT, who represents in Congress downtown Manhattan as well as up-State New York, who used to have a law office in Wall Street, and who ought to know what he talks about, made the same declaration far more succinctly and with much greater emphasis in his recent speech to the Chamber of Commerce. These were his words:

There are hundreds of thousands of people outside the great industrial communities who think you are a den of thieves. There are hundreds of thousands of people who think that the manufacturers of the country are no better than a set of confidence men.

The distinguished Senator then went on to urge his hearers to strive to overcome this impression by their acts. And that is what Mr. WILSON did - just that and nothing more. Mr. WILSON’s language was less brusque than Mr. ROOT’s, but he aimed at the same thing. And wasn’t it good advice? If not, we for one don’t know what good advice is.

Then again Mr. WILSON did not say that our banking system stands “convicted of heinous and dangerous practices.” He said it stood convicted of general incompetency and specific inability to meet the needs of the country - which is just what everybody in and out of Wall Street has been saying for years.

And Mr. WILSON did not say, in either Chicago or New York, that “if business disturbance results from all this it will be because capitalists have conspired to bring it about,” and ought to be hanged “as high as HAMAN.” What he did say was that if unscrupulous persons should try to fetch on a panic to serve their own wicked ends or to discredit those who are trying to accomplish reforms, they ought to be and would be held up to derision and scorn - held up or hung up as high as HAMAN.

Well, who wants to deny the rightfnhiess of that proposition? If he had said higher than HAMAN, we shouldn’t object. Panics are bad things, very bad things, and no punishment is too severe for anybody caught encouraging them. Maybe it wasn’t necessary for Mr. WILSON to say that at this time; we think probably it wasn’t; but what he said was all right.

It may be that “it has been agreed in defense of Mr. WILSON” that he spoke extemporaneously, and “was carried away by oratorical afflatus,” but if so we should like to know who did the agreeing. Surely Mr. WILSON would not admit that he did not speak deliberately, and there is no reason why he should, for he didn’t say a thing that wasn’t true. He did speak extemporaneously, to be sure, and that was a mistake, because only segregated and misrepresentative portions of his Chicago speech got into the Eastern papers; but that is the only real ground for criticism we have found or can find.

The Times’ financier, after due consideration, reaches this sage conclusion:

There was an undercurrent of hope that the responsibility of office, once it actually rests on his shoulders, will lead Mr. WILSON to weigh more carefully the effect of his public utterances, but the real sentiment of the Street in respect to the influence to be exerted by the incoming of the new administration was pretty accurately reflected in the course of prices of the Stock Exchange. It remained true, none the less, that inferences, perhaps well founded and perhaps not, had as much to do with the effect produced by Mr. WILSON's words as had the direct statement of his views as he expressed them. The Street's own interpretation, in other words, heightened the effect of the President-elect's discussion of the questions which he treated in his address at Chicago a week ago and in his later statement in which be dealt with the policy which he expects to pursue in the selection of his Cabinet. In this fact lies the possibility that the market effect of this factor was overdone.

The “real sentiment of the Street,” we believe, is usually “pretty accurately reflected in the course of prices on the Stock Exchange.” It is not uncommon, moreover, to see an effect “heightened by the Street’s own interpretation.” Sometimes, too, it does happen that the market effect is “overdone” by speculators.

Well, that is Wall Street’s business. It isn’t Mr. WILSON’s. And it isn’t the public’s. If there are those who think they can make money by selling stocks on their own “interpretations,” that is their privilege. It is also the prerogative of others to buy shares for the same purpose on their judgment.

Let ’em go it, we say. There isn’t any panic or any sign of a panic, and all the stock-jobbers combined couldn’t make one in a time like this if they should try. Investors are not alarmed, and have not the slightest cause to be. They haven’t been selling any shares, either. It is a strictly “professional” market and unworthy of a moment's attention from Mr. Wilson or anybody else associated with him in gauging real public sentiment.

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