Part 17 (1/2)

When I left the telephone booth, David Lawrence, the Washi+ngton correspondent of the New York _Evening Post_, who a feeeks before had predicted, in a remarkable article, the election of Wilson, and as ht (in conjunction with Mr L Aton, connected with the Democratic National Committee) conferred with me, and from a table he had prepared showed me how the small states of the West, which the returns indicated were now co into the Wilson column, would elect the Democratic candidate, and that under no circumstances must we, by any chance, in any state telephone er in New York, and quickly there would follow bulletins fro that he said These es came so rapidly that I was soon convinced that this individual, whoever he was, had the real inside of the Republican situation So convinced was I that I followed upwith additional state the election for Mr Wilson

Just about the break of day on Wednesday , as David Lawrence, Ames Brown, and my son Joe, were seated in my office, a room which overlooked a wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, ere notified by De drift toward Wilson Ohio, which in the early evening had been claimed by the Republicans, had turned to Wilson by an approximatetoward hi the saan to rise appreciably from that time on, until state after state from the West ca the New York _Ti that the election of Mr Hughes was doubtful

Without sleep and without food, those of us at the Executive offices kept close to the telephone wire We never left the job for a er ca the election, when he 'phoned e Perkins is now at Republican headquarters and is telephoning Roosevelt and will soon leave to infor is up,' and that Wilson is elected” Shortly after, froe Perkins is on his way to confer with Mr

Roosevelt”

Soer ca hiht of the election had kept me in touch with Republican headquarters, and then astoundedme that in some mysterious hich he did not disclose, he had succeeded in breaking in on the Republican National Committee wire and had listened in on every conversation that had passed between Willcox, Hughes, George Perkins, Harvey, and Theodore Roosevelt hi

Mr Wilson arose theafter the election, confident that he had been defeated He went about his tasks in the usual way The first news that he received that there had been a turn in the tide caaret, who knocked on the door of the bathroo and told hi that the election was in doubt, with indications of a Wilson victory The President thought that his daughter was playing a practical joke on him and told her to ”tell that to the Marines,” and went on about his shaving

When the President and I discussed the visit of his daughter, Margaret, to notify hi to enjoy the reaction of defeat when he was notified that the tide had turned in his favour This will seem unusual, but those of us ere close to the man and who understood the trials and tribulations of the Presidency, knew that he was in fact for the first ti the freedom of private life

Mr Wilson's iht was like that of sturdy Grover Cleveland, though temperamentally the men were unlike Mr

Cleveland used to tell his friends how in 1884 he had gone to bed early not knoas elected, and how he learned the news of his election nextfirst made inquiries about the state of the weather In 1892 Mr Cleveland, his wife, and two friends played a quiet ga these reminiscences, the old warrior used to say that he never could understand the exciteht is all over then,” he would say, ”and it isthe ballots” Mr Wilson preserved the same calmness, which appeared al rooe in Cleveland Lane in Princeton quietly reading fro in the conversation of Mrs

Wilson and a few neighbours who had dropped in In a rear rooraphic ticker, an operator, and some newspaper boys who at intervals would take an especially interesting bulletin in to Mr Wilson, ould glance at it casually, make souests of the evening who read in a newspaper next day a rather inative account of the scene, said: ”The only dra dramatic”

CHAPTER XXVII

NEUTRALITY

While President Wilson was giving his whole thought and effort to the solution of exacting domestic tasks, the European war broke upon hi and coland

Fully conscious fro of the difficulties that lay in his path, he are of the eventualities the war now beginning ht lead to As a profound student of history he saith a clear vision the necessity of neutrality and of Aled in every way from the embroilments of Europe To the people of the country it at first appeared that the as oneseries of European quarrels and that we reat conflict as mere spectators and strictly adhere to the American policy of traditional aloofness and isolation, which had been our ih ere bound to inning foresaw its futility, and afterward gave expression to this conviction in a can speech in 1916, when he said:

This is the last war [ the World War] of its kind or of any kind that involves the world that the United States can keep out of I say that because I believe that the business of neutrality is over; not because I want it to be over, but I mean this, that war now has such a scale that the position of neutrals sooner or later becomes intolerable

He kne difficult it would be to keep a people so variously constituted strictly neutral No sooner was his proclamation of neutrality announced than the differences in points of view in racial stocks began to e both intemperate and passionate, until his advice to his country ”to be neutral in fact as well as in na

I have often been asked if the policy of neutrality which the President announced, and which brought a fire of criticiss toward the European war, and whether if he had been a private citizen, he would have derided it as now his critics were engaged in doing

As an inti the whole of the European war, and witnessing fros, especially after the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, I am certain that had he been free to do so he would have yielded to the i a cause that in his heart of hearts he felt involved the civilization of the world But it was his devotion to the idea of trusteeshi+p that held hi out that trusteeshi+p he had no right to perovern his public acts

It would have been a draiue to the humane interest of Aesture, for ere unable to transport are Such action would have pleased some people in the East, but the President knew that this quixotic knight errantry would not appeal to the country at large, particularly the West, still strongly grounded in the Washi+ngtonian tradition of non-interference in European quarrels

Colonel Roosevelt hily the ”pusillanimity” of the Administration's course, said on Septeians has arrived in this country to invoke our assistance in the tiovernment can or will take I know not It has been announced that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality It is certainly eminently desirable that we should reent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other

It was not the policy of a weakling or a timid man It was the policy of a prudent leader and statesers and who as an historian himself knew the difficulties of an imprudent or incautious move

I recall the day he prepared his neutrality proclamation At the end of one of the ton, he left the Executive offices where he was engaged in ressmen, and I found hied with pad and pencil in preparing his neutrality proclamation, which was soon to loose a fierce storm of opposition and ridicule upon him He and I had often discussed the war and its effect upon our own country, and one day in August, 1914, just after the Great War had begun, he said to h deep waters in the days to co dormant will soon be aroused and ed until there will be left but few friends to justify rows in intensity it will soon resolve itself into a war between autocracy and deroups in America will seek to lead us now one way and then another We must sit steady in the boat and bow our heads to meet the storm”

Bound as he was by the responsibilities of trusteeshi+p to adhere to a policy of neutrality, personally he saw that the inevitable results would be only bitter disappointment ”We cannot reion of it will spread until it reaches our own shores On the one side Mr Bryan will censure the Ad too militaristic, and on the other ill find Mr Roosevelt criticizing us because we are too pacifist in our tendencies”