Part 10 (1/2)

At the time of his espousal of the Wilson cause he was the only leader in the New York financial world ready and courageous enough to take up the cudgels for Mr Wilson His influence thrown to the Wilson side strengthened the Wilson cause in every part of the country Every intin that Mr McAdoo, as vice-chair this or that thing in connection with his duties as vice-chairman, was always calculated to stir anew the fires of envy and jealousy which see in the breast of McCombs

I was in close touch with Mr Wilson and all the phases of his can at the time, and on several occasions was asked to act as mediator in the differences between Mr McAdoo and Mr McCombs, and I am, therefore, in a position calmly to analyze and assess the reasons for McCombs' implacable hatred of Mr McAdoo I found that the motives which actuated McCombs were of the pettiest and meanest sort At their base lay the realization that Mr McAdoo had, by his gallant and helpful support of Mr Wilson, won his ad must be done by McCombs and his friends to destroy Mr McAdoo in the estimation of the Democratic candidate for the Presidency In the efforts put forth by McCoh opinion of Mr McAdoo every contemptible and underhanded method was resorted to Mr McAdoo reacted to these unfair attacks in the le ainst him to stand in the way of Woodrow Wilson's advance the whole tied in his vendetta, Mr

McAdoo was generous, gallant, big, and forgiving, even suggesting to the Deht be wiser for his at headquarters ht run easier and more smoothly” Mr Wilson would not by any act of his per methods of McCombs to be rewarded in the withdrawal of McAdoo fron

After the election and when it was certain that McAdoo was being seriously considered for the post of Secretary of the Treasury, McCoan to exert itself in the most venomous way He tried to persuade Mr

Wilson that the selection of Mr McAdoo for the post of Secretary of the Treasury would be too nition of the Wall Street point of view, and would be considered a repudiation of McCombs' leadershi+p in the National Con of McCombs to prevent the nomination of Mr McAdoo for a post in the Cabinet failed utterly His poison brigade then gathered at the Shorehauration and, atteht to prevent his confirency of opposition that McCombs could invoke to accomplish this purpose was put into action, but like all his efforts against Mr McAdoo they met with failure Mr McAdoo was confirmed and took his place as Secretary of the Treasury, where his constructive genius in ht into play, and under his nificent leadershi+p the foundation stones of the Federal Reserve syste realized in every business throughout the country

Frequent conferences were held at Princeton with reference to the selection of the President's Cabinet, and in these conferences Colonel House and I participated At a luncheon at the Sterling Hotel at Trenton Mr Bryan was offered the post of Secretary of State

On the first of March the post of Secretary of War was still open It had been offered to Mr A Mitchell Palmer of Pennsylvania and had been declined by him for an unusual reason The President requested Mr Palmer to meet him at Colonel House's apartment in New York When the President tendered him the position of Secretary of War, Mr Palmer frankly told the President that he was a Quaker and that the tenets of his religion prevented his acceptance of any position having to do with the conduct of war The President tried to overco The President then telephoned me and inforestion regarding the vacancy in his Cabinet I told him that I was anxious to see a New Jersey man occupy a place at his Cabinet table, and we discussed the various possibilities over the 'phone, but without reaching any definite conclusion I inforest the name of someone within a few hours

I then went to the library inover the _Lawyers' Diary_ I ran across the name of Lindley Garrison, who at the time was vice-chancellor of the state of New Jersey Mr Garrison was a resident of h I had only met him casually and had tried a few cases before hih type of equity judge

I telephoned the President-elect that night and suggested the nauished judge of the Chancery Court was known to the President-elect He was invited to Trenton the next day and without having the slightest knowledge of the purpose of this summons, he arrived and was offered the post of Secretary of War in Mr Wilson's Cabinet, which he accepted

CHAPTER XIX

THE INAUGURATION

A presidential inauguration is a picturesque affair even when the weather is storton It is a brilliant affair when the sun shi+nes bright and the air is balmy, as happened on March 4, 1913, when Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office at noon, delivered his inaugural address a few minutes later, reviewed the parade ihtfall was at his desk in the White House transacting the business of the Governuration Day represents crowds and hurrahs, brass bands and processions The hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses of Washi+ngton overfloith people from all parts of the country who have come to ”see the show” The pave Pennsylvania Avenue froate of the White House are croith folk eager to see the procession with itsclubs From an improvised stand in front of the White House, surrounded by his friends, the new President reviews the parade

Every four years the newspaper boys describe Inauguration Day, but I am not aware of any novelist who has put it in a book Why not? It offers h order for literary description ”Human interest”

material also in abundance, notPresidents with their respective retinues of iedies of the lesser figures of the motley political world Fae of ad colu national disaster at the hands of parvenus,in general over their party's success and palpitantly eager for individual advantage As in life, so in Washi+ngton on Inauguration Day, hu of a period of uprooting and transplanting

So it hen the Democrats came into office on March 4, 1913, after sixteen years of uninterrupted Republican control and for only the third time in the fifty-two years since Buchanan had walked out of the White House and Lincoln had walked in Hungry Deton, dismayed Republicans looked on in silence or with sardonic co, like Mr Micawber, for ”soled in the hotel lobbies with youths flushed with the exciteame and discussed the ”prospects,” each confident that he was indispensable to the new administration Minor officeholders who had, so they said, been political neutrals during the past adns that they would be retained

”Original Wilsonthe introduced by their friends And there were the thousands, with no axes to grind, who had co-postponed De, or to wish the new President Godspeed for his and the country's sake It is not my business in a book wholly concerned with the personal side of Woodrow Wilson's political career to atteuration Day, with its clamours and its heartaches and its hopes To the new President the day was, as he himself said, not one of ”triunificance beyond the fortunes of individuals and parties So more had happened than a replacement of Republicans by Democrats He believed that he had been elected as a result of a stirring of the Ae” and, a reawakening of Aovernment which should more nearly meet the needs of the plain people of the country He knew that he would have to disappoint ry office-seeker, whose chief claim to preferment lay in his boast that he ”had always voted the De the new President's first duties would be the selection of men to fill offices and, of course, in loyalty to his party, he would give preference to Democrats, but it did not please hie” and ”spoils” With the concentration of a purposeful man he was anxious chiefly to find the best people for the various offices, those capable of doing a day's work and those who could sense the opportunities for service in whole-hearted devotion to the country's coural address h plane of statesmanshi+p, uncoloured by partisanshi+p It was the announcee, with the idea of trusteeshi+p strongly stressed

There was nothing very radical in the address: nothing to terrify those ere apprehensive lest property rights should be violated The President gave specific assurance that there would be due attention to ”the old-fashi+oned, never-to-be-neglected, safeguarding of property,” but he also iitimate property claims would be scrupulously respected, but it was clear that they who conceived that the chief business of government is the proet little aid and co of the President's progressivislect orpoint of our Governovernment in the interest of the many, not of the few: ”Our work is a work of restoration”; ”We have been refreshed by a new insight into our life”

A deep huhtful hearer it must have been clear that the President's mind was more occupied with the masses than with special classes He was not hostile to the classes He was siested a social as well as a political programme: ”Men and women and children” must be ”shi+elded in their lives, their very vitality, froreat industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with” ”The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves” Such was the first utterance of the President who in a feeeks was to appear as the chan, in Mexico, but of the fifteen h blood and confusion, after soovernment, and who in a few years was to appear as the chahout the world in a titanic struggle against the old principles of autocracy

Mingled with the high and human tone of it all was a clear and iteislation: a revised tariff, a federal reserve banking system, a farmers' loan bank And all who knew Woodrow Wilson's record in New Jersey were aware that the Executive would be the leader in the enactislative branches of the Government in this administration would, all informed people knew, be in partnershi+p in the pro

After Chief Justice White administered the oath of office, the President read the brief address, of which the following are the concluding words:

This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of hu in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say ill do Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I sume, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain rave ime pressed upon the new Administration for immediate solution One of theout of the revolution against the Madero Government which broke out in Mexico City on February 9, 1913 The murder of ex-President Madero and Vice-President Suarez, and the usurpation of presidential authority by General Victoriano Huerta, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the general industrial and social chaos of Mexico, made it necessary for the new administration, only a month in power, quickly to act and to declare its policy with reference to the question then pending as to the recognition of the provisional govern ”President” of Mexico, the usurper had brazenly addressed the following telegram to President Taft: ”I have overthrown the Governn,” and boldly asserted a clainition by the Government of the United States

This was the state of affairs in Mexico when President Wilson was inaugurated The duly-elected President of Mexico, Francisco Madero, had been overthrown by a band of conspirators headed by Huerta Were the fruits of the hard-won fight of the Mexican ainst the arbitrary rule of the favoured few to be wasted? President Wilson answered this question in his foruration With respect to Latin-American affairs, he said: