Woodrow Wilson_ A Biography

Chapter 5

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It was a triumph for Wilson. Whether he really hoped to bring the Germans to heel is not clear. His decision to force their hand was reluctant, and it did not spring from a shrewd reading of their intentions. Neither the emba.s.sy in Berlin nor House"s informal network was particularly astute in a.s.sessing crosscurrents of opinion in Berlin or at the military headquarters. Wilson may have felt resigned to having to go to war, but unlike House and Lansing, he did not welcome that prospect. He may simply have gotten lucky, but he had shown great patience in seeking a way to satisfy the "double wish." Ironically, he had succeeded by finally choosing one half over the other-gaining satisfaction from Germany even while risking war. Choruses of praise arose from newspapers and private citizens throughout the country. Wilson deserved their praise, although not as much as he did for keeping out of war in Mexico. This diplomatic triumph would alter the balance of relations with the belligerents. The German naval leader"s hopeful prediction of trouble between the United States and the Allies would soon come true. More important for Wilson, this triumph cleared the way for new initiatives abroad, fewer distractions on the domestic front, and a clearer path toward another four years in the White House.

He did not exult at his good fortune. Besides knowing how differently the confrontation might have gone, Wilson was painfully aware of how fragile and unstable American neutrality remained. On May 8, the same day that his reply to Germany went out, he met at the White House with a group of anti-preparedness leaders, who included the renowned social worker Lillian Wald, the young socialist writer Max Eastman, and the radical Progressive Amos Pinchot. After listening patiently to their arguments and defending his preparedness program, the president a.s.serted, "This is a year of madness. ... Now, in these circ.u.mstances, it is America"s duty to keep her head." He wanted not only to keep the bad influences of European power politics out of the Western Hemisphere but also to create a new effort to maintain world peace, in which the United States would "play our proportional part in manifesting the force that is going to be back of that. Now, in the last a.n.a.lysis, the peace of society is obtained by force. ... And if you say we shall not have any war, you have got to have force to make that "shall" bite."44 He was edging toward unveiling what he had hinted at earlier: his belief in the league of nations idea. Three days later, in his off-the-record interview with Baker, he said he was thinking about what he could do to promote peace and asked whether he should disclose his ideas to the League to Enforce Peace. That organization, headed by Taft and increasingly known by its initials, LEP (p.r.o.nounced "el-ee-pee"), had invited the president to speak at its annual dinner in Washington on May 27. Ignoring House"s advice to the contrary, he accepted the invitation and found himself sharing the speaker"s platform with Lodge, who a year earlier had called for "great nations ... united" to enforce peace. Wilson struck a properly circ.u.mspect pose. He declined to endorse or comment on the LEP"s program and talked instead about how the world war had changed so much. "With its cause and effects we are not concerned," he maintained, but only with its profound impact on America: "We are partic.i.p.ants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world. The interests of all nations are our own also."45 One cause of the war did concern Wilson: "secret counsels" that had forged alliances and resorted to force. The shock and surprise of the war"s onset had shown "that the peace of the world must henceforth rest upon a new and more wholesome diplomacy." The world"s "great nations" must decide what is "fundamental to their common interest, and as to some feasible method of acting in concert when any nation or group of nations seeks to disturb those fundamental things." This was an unequivocal endors.e.m.e.nt of the league idea. Wilson went further, declaring, "We [Americans] believe in these fundamental things: First, that every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live. ... Second, that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and powerful nations expect and insist upon. And, third, that the world has a right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in aggression and disregard of the rights of peoples and nations." He vowed "that the United States is willing to become a partner in any feasible a.s.sociation of nations formed in order to realize those objects and make them secure against violation."46 Wilson"s circ.u.mspect pose could not hide his wonted boldness. Despite endorsing the LEP"s central idea-international enforcement-he said nothing about arbitration or international courts, which Taft and the organization"s other activists, mainly lawyers, stressed. Wilson"s second and third "fundamental things" foreshadowed Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which he would call its "heart," and he even foreshadowed the language of that article when he called for "a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity and political independence." He was showing from the outset that he wanted an essentially political league, which differed from the judicial body that LEP leaders envisioned, and he was enunciating the concept that would later come to be called collective security. Likewise, when he deplored "secret counsels" and advocated "a right to choose ... sovereignty," he was foreshadowing elements of his Fourteen Points and other major policy statements, as he did further when he demanded "the inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all the nations of the world." These ideas would later come to be known as open diplomacy, self-determination, and freedom of the seas. These ideas, together with his demand for equal rights for small nations, put him at odds with some of the LEP leaders and Lodge, who envisioned a great-power directorate to run the world. Furthermore, these ideas put him more in line with liberal and left-wing thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic who wanted sweeping reforms to replace the balance of power, inst.i.tute disarmament, and promote freedom for subject peoples.47 Wilson knew he had taken a bold step. Both Bryan and Roosevelt had been attacking the LEP, though for opposite reasons. Bryan had invoked traditional American isolation, with genuflections to Washington"s Farewell Address and Jefferson"s injunction against "entangling alliances," and he had condemned the league idea as imperialistic and warmongering. Those arguments had drawn support from some Democrats and Republican insurgents. Wilson strove to rea.s.sure his party brethren in his next speech, a Decoration Day address three days later at Arlington National Cemetery. "I shall never consent to an entangling alliance," he avowed, "but I would gladly a.s.sent to a disentangling alliance-an alliance which would disentangle the peoples of the world from those combinations in which they seek their own separate and private interests and unite the peoples of the world to preserve the peace of the world upon a basis of common right and justice." He was aiming that rhetorical reversal at skeptical Democrats, but he was not retreating. A few days later, he drafted the Democratic platform on which he would run for reelection. In one section, he lifted both the ideas and many of the same words from his speech to the LEP, declaring, "[W]e believe that the time has come when it is the duty of the United States to join with other nations of the world in any feasible a.s.sociation that will effectively serve these principles."48 Wilson"s attempt to bring Democrats on board a more activist, outward-looking foreign policy was an even bolder move than espousal of the league idea. In domestic affairs, he had been going further down a trail that others, especially Bryan, had blazed before him, and he had been taking the party in directions in which most of its members wanted to go. By contrast, in foreign policy he was trying to wean them from a heritage of resistance to overseas commitments and opposition to bigger armed forces-a heritage that Bryan was now distilling into self-conscious isolationism. Left to themselves, a majority of Democrats would most likely have followed the Great Commoner"s lead rather than accept the president"s new course. There was peril for Wilson, but he had advantages. As he had already shown in the preparedness fight, he could appeal to party and patriotic solidarity. Equally important, this was an election year, and the Democrats" hopes of remaining in power rested with him. Finally, he had long since proved to the more progressive Democrats, who gave the party its ideological lifeblood, that he was one of them and could deliver legislation and appointments that gave them their hearts" desires.

Domestic issues necessarily took a backseat for Wilson during the first half of 1916, but he did not forget them. In January, he made three moves that signaled a second and more progressive installment of the New Freedom. He reversed himself on two issues on which earlier he had not favored action. One was the tariff. As he had already publicly stated, he now supported an independent commission to investigate and advise on tariff rates, an idea formerly favored mainly by Roosevelt and his Progressives. The other was rural credits. He now brushed aside Secretary of Agriculture Houston"s objections and supported his government lending program for farmers. When the plan"s princ.i.p.al Democratic sponsors, Senator Henry Hollis of New Hampshire and Representative Asbury Lever of South Carolina, came to see him in the White House in late January, the congressman proposed a figure of $3 million. Wilson stunned his visitors by saying, "I have only one criticism of Lever"s proposition, and that is that he is too modest in his amount." His visitors quickly agreed to double the sum.49 Wilson"s final move in January 1916 dramatically gave the strongest proof of his undiminished progressive zeal. On January 28, without warning, he nominated Louis Brandeis to a seat on the Supreme Court. The death of Justice Joseph Lamar three weeks earlier had created the vacancy. It probably helped that House, who had worked a.s.siduously against appointments for Brandeis, was in Europe. Wilson evidently did not consider anyone else. He discussed the nomination only briefly with McAdoo and Attorney General Gregory, who were both enthusiastic, and he mentioned it to Samuel Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor, who a.s.sured him of the unions" support. Wilson bypa.s.sed the custom of honoring "senatorial courtesy" by not consulting with Lodge and John W. Weeks, the two conservative Republicans who represented Brandeis"s adopted home state of Ma.s.sachusetts. He did consult with La Follette, who a.s.sured him of progressive Republican support. The news of Brandeis"s nomination landed like a bombsh.e.l.l on Capitol Hill. As Taft"s friend and Washington informant Gus Karger reported to the ex-president, "When Brandeis"s nomination came in yesterday, the Senate simply gasped. ... There wasn"t any more excitement at the Capitol when Congress pa.s.sed the Spanish War resolution."50 Those moves in January served as openers to a new legislative campaign. In March, Wilson urged his party"s leaders in Congress to push an ambitious program, and the House Democratic caucus committed itself to new taxation, a tariff commission, shipping regulation, and rural credits. Of those measures, rural credits unexpectedly proved the easiest to pa.s.s. Bills cleared both houses in May by lopsided margins, with most Republicans not voting. The tariff commission took longer to pa.s.s but excited little debate, as did a bill to establish a commission to regulate maritime shipping. Those measures drew scant attention because by the beginning of the summer the presidential campaign and more heated domestic issues would overshadow them.51 One domestic matter did stir up a major conflict from the outset-the Brandeis nomination. True to predictions, conservatives and legal traditionalists were apoplectic. Fifty-one leading citizens of Boston, where Brandeis lived and practiced law, issued a public letter that p.r.o.nounced him lacking the proper temperament to sit on the Supreme Court. Most of the signers were Boston Brahmins, including Harvard"s president, A. Lawrence Lowell. Not everyone at Harvard agreed with Lowell, however. Former president Charles W. Eliot publicly supported Brandeis, as did Roscoe Pound, the dean of the law school, together with nine of the school"s eleven faculty members. A pet.i.tion in support of Brandeis drew more than 700 signatures from Harvard students. On the other side, seven former presidents of the American Bar a.s.sociation, including Taft, called Brandeis "unfit" for the Court. In view of Brandeis"s progressive activism and unorthodox legal thinking, such opposition was to be expected.52 Another element in the opposition was anti-Semitism. If confirmed by the Senate, Brandeis would become the first Jew to serve on the Supreme Court and thereby attain the highest public office in the United States yet held by a Jew. No prominent opponent ever publicly stated that Brandeis should not be on the Supreme Court because of his religion, but privately many of them thought so and said so. The use of the word unfit unfit by the president of the bar a.s.sociation also carried a connotation of prejudice. Equally disturbing, in the Senate, La Follette proved to be a poor judge of sentiment among his fellow Republican insurgents. Two who served on the Judiciary Committee, Albert c.u.mmins of Iowa and John Works of California, announced their opposition to the nomination. Some Democrats on the committee also seemed lukewarm. Brandeis did not testify at the Judiciary Committee hearings, although he played an active role behind the scenes in managing the public relations aspect of his nomination. The hearings became a parade of character witnesses for and against him, and his nomination appeared to be stalled in the committee. Some of his supporters privately accused Wilson of failing to act and not wanting the nomination to go through. by the president of the bar a.s.sociation also carried a connotation of prejudice. Equally disturbing, in the Senate, La Follette proved to be a poor judge of sentiment among his fellow Republican insurgents. Two who served on the Judiciary Committee, Albert c.u.mmins of Iowa and John Works of California, announced their opposition to the nomination. Some Democrats on the committee also seemed lukewarm. Brandeis did not testify at the Judiciary Committee hearings, although he played an active role behind the scenes in managing the public relations aspect of his nomination. The hearings became a parade of character witnesses for and against him, and his nomination appeared to be stalled in the committee. Some of his supporters privately accused Wilson of failing to act and not wanting the nomination to go through.

Those suspicions were unfounded. Early in May, Wilson intervened with another deft exercise in legislative leadership. Behind the scenes, he worked with Attorney General Gregory and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gregory"s friend and fellow Texan Charles A. Culberson, to move things along. By prearrangement, Culberson wrote to ask the president to give his reasons for choosing Brandeis. Wilson responded on May 5 with a long letter, which the chairman read to the committee and released to the press. Calling Brandeis "singularly qualified by learning, by gifts, and by character," the president dismissed the charges leveled against this nominee as "intrinsically incredible. ... He is a friend of all just men and a lover of the right, and he knows more than how to talk about the right-he knows how to set it forward in the face of its enemies." Wilson recounted Brandeis"s stellar record as a lawyer and praised "his impartial, orderly, and constructive mind, his rare a.n.a.lytical powers, his deep human sympathy. ... This friend of justice and of men will ornament the high court of which we are all so justly proud."53 Wilson"s letter was a masterstroke, but his nominee was not out of the woods. One Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, James Reed of Missouri, had a history of giving the president trouble, and another, John K. Shields of Tennessee, was no friend of his either. Two others, Wilson"s nemesis at the Atlanta bar but more recently his supporter, Hoke Smith of Georgia, and Lee Overman of North Carolina, were also wavering. In response, Wilson had McAdoo, Burleson, and Gregory apply patronage pressure, and he personally courted Shields and Overman. In the latter case, Wilson invited Overman to accompany the presidential party on a trip to North Carolina, and he publicly praised the senator when the train stopped in his hometown.

These tactics worked. On May 24, the Judiciary Committee reported favorably on Brandeis"s nomination. The vote was 10 to 8, strictly along party lines. Besides c.u.mmins and Works, another Republican insurgent, William E. Borah of Idaho, also voted no. On June 1, the full Senate acted without debate in executive session, approving the nomination by a vote of 47 to 22. Only one Democrat, the aged, cranky Francis Newlands of Nevada, voted against Brandeis. Only two Republicans, La Follette and Norris, and the lone Progressive, Miles Poindexter of Washington, crossed party lines to vote in favor. This was an early sign of Republicans" coming alignment against progressive measures. At the time, however, only joy abounded in reform circles. The president refrained from public comment, but he said privately, "I never signed a commission with such satisfaction as I signed his." Brandeis"s friend and supporter Norman Hapgood recalled that the president told him, "I can never live up to my Brandeis appointment. There is n.o.body else who represents the greatest technical ability and professional success with complete devotion to the people"s interest."54 He was right. Besides striking a blow against religious prejudice, he had made his finest and most important appointment. In itself, this was one of Wilson"s greatest contributions to American public life. He had made his deepest bow yet toward progressivism, and he had thrown out a fitting opener to his bid for reelection. He was right. Besides striking a blow against religious prejudice, he had made his finest and most important appointment. In itself, this was one of Wilson"s greatest contributions to American public life. He had made his deepest bow yet toward progressivism, and he had thrown out a fitting opener to his bid for reelection.

Wilson was at the top of his form as a leader. By the middle of 1916, he had turned the troubles that had faced him into a tide that was leading him on to fortune. He was also happy in his personal life, and he owed most of his happiness to Edith. The newlyweds had settled into a comfortable routine at the White House. They usually woke early for a snack and a round of golf, followed by breakfast at eight. An hour later, the stenographer Charles Swem would come to the upstairs study to take dictation. Edith often stayed to listen. "It was a delight and an education to hear the lucid answers that came with apparently no effort from a mind so well-stored," she recalled in her memoirs. Then, while her husband spent the morning in his office, she would tend to household management with Mrs. Jaffray and work on her own correspondence with her secretary, Edith Benham. The couple would have lunch together, usually with guests, and following his afternoon stint in the office, they would take a ride. On Sat.u.r.days, they often took longer rides, sometimes as far as Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, or they might go on an overnight or weekend cruise on the Mayflower Mayflower. They saw friends and family as before, and Edith got on well with Wilson"s daughters and other relatives. Grayson remained a special friend, and on May 24 the Wilsons and McAdoos journeyed to New York for his wedding to Altrude Gordon.55 Private and official life frequently dovetailed, to Edith"s delight. She enjoyed public functions. Her first White House occasion was in January, when she and the president greeted 3,328 guests at a diplomatic reception. State dinners followed at regular intervals. Edith had a keen fashion sense and chose her ensembles with care on these gala occasions. She accompanied Wilson on the preparedness speaking tour in January and February, and she was with him when he gave most of his speeches at other times. She also paid attention to his appearance. Wilson was already a good dresser, but Edith injected a bit of flair into his wardrobe. Evidence of her touch could be seen on June 14, Flag Day, when the president led a big Preparedness Parade up Pennsylvania Avenue. "How young and vital he looked," she recalled. "He wore white flannel trousers, a blue sack coat, white shoes, white straw hat, and carried an American flag about a yard and a half long. What a picture, as the breeze caught and carried out the Stars and Stripes!"56 That day, Woodrow Wilson was marching along the same route that he had ridden three years earlier at his inauguration. He was. .h.i.tting his stride toward a second inaugural journey along that route. That day, Woodrow Wilson was marching along the same route that he had ridden three years earlier at his inauguration. He was. .h.i.tting his stride toward a second inaugural journey along that route.

16.

TO RUN AGAIN.

When Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916, he faced a daunting task. The increasing likelihood that the Republicans would heal their breach meant that any Democratic nominee, even an inc.u.mbent president, would be an underdog. This predicament reflected hard facts of political geography. Since 1896, the Republicans had enjoyed a lock on the Northeast and Midwest, where the population and number of states gave them a prohibitive edge in electoral votes for president and control of both houses of Congress. The Democrats held on to what Bryan liked to call the Great Crescent-the vast expanse that stretched south and west of the Potomac, Ohio, and Missouri rivers. That expanse contained far fewer people and a smaller number of states, and only in the white supremacist South did the Democrats dominate the way their opponents did in their heartland. The Republicans" internecine strife in 1910 and seismic rift in 1912 had given the Democrats openings, first to win the House and then to gain all of Congress and the White House. Many of those gains had proved ephemeral, however. In 1914, Republicans bounced back strongly, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. If that trend continued in 1916, the Democrats would most likely revert to their habitual minority status on Capitol Hill and banishment from the White House.

Those prospects did not dishearten Wilson. With his penchant for boldness, he liked fights against long odds, and not everything about the political scene looked gloomy. His victories in the preparedness struggle, the submarine crisis, Mexico, domestic reform legislation, and the Brandeis nomination underlined the three major themes of his upcoming campaign: peace, preparedness, and progressivism. There was also a fourth p: p: prosperity. The 1914 elections had occurred during a severe recession, which hit hardest in industrial states from New England to the Great Lakes-the Republican heartland. Now, thanks to stimulus from Allied war orders, the economy was booming, with robust demand for both manufactured goods and agricultural products. Any president and party in power were bound to take credit for prosperity, and Wilson and his Democrats were no exception. Finally, he had a united, enthusiastic party behind him. Bryan was coming back on board: he was an old campaign warhorse unable to resist the call to action, and he wanted to position himself so that he might have influence in the party. In all, Wilson could face the electorate in good spirits. prosperity. The 1914 elections had occurred during a severe recession, which hit hardest in industrial states from New England to the Great Lakes-the Republican heartland. Now, thanks to stimulus from Allied war orders, the economy was booming, with robust demand for both manufactured goods and agricultural products. Any president and party in power were bound to take credit for prosperity, and Wilson and his Democrats were no exception. Finally, he had a united, enthusiastic party behind him. Bryan was coming back on board: he was an old campaign warhorse unable to resist the call to action, and he wanted to position himself so that he might have influence in the party. In all, Wilson could face the electorate in good spirits.

Of his three main campaign themes, the president wanted most to stress progressivism. In his Jefferson Day speech in April, he indicated his continued commitment to strong central government: "You cannot draw example from the deeds deeds of Thomas Jefferson. ... There is no parallel in the circ.u.mstances of the times of Thomas Jefferson with the circ.u.mstances of the time in which we live." Shortly afterward, he began drafting the platform on which he and his party would run, and at the beginning of June he received a suggestion that helped give the doc.u.ment a sharper political focus: Senator Owen of Oklahoma urged him to take ideas from the 1912 Progressive platform "as a means of attaching to our party progressive Republicans who are in sympathy with us in so large a degree." of Thomas Jefferson. ... There is no parallel in the circ.u.mstances of the times of Thomas Jefferson with the circ.u.mstances of the time in which we live." Shortly afterward, he began drafting the platform on which he and his party would run, and at the beginning of June he received a suggestion that helped give the doc.u.ment a sharper political focus: Senator Owen of Oklahoma urged him to take ideas from the 1912 Progressive platform "as a means of attaching to our party progressive Republicans who are in sympathy with us in so large a degree."1 Wilson liked the suggestion and asked Owen to specify the 1912 Progressive ideas to include. Wilson liked the suggestion and asked Owen to specify the 1912 Progressive ideas to include.

The senator responded by highlighting federal legislation to promote workers" health and safety, provide unemployment compensation, prohibit child labor, establish minimum wages and maximum hours, and require an eight-hour day and six-day workweek. Wilson, in turn, included in his draft platform a plank calling for all work done by and for the federal government to provide a minimum wage, an eight-hour day and six-day workweek, and health and safety measures and to prohibit child labor, and-his own additions-protections for female workers and a retirement program. That plank also expanded on the government"s efforts to help workers find employment and extend vocational training from agriculture to other work. In addition, he inserted a separate plank that read, "We recommend the extension of the franchise to the women of the country by the states upon the same terms as to men."2 Wilson did not go as far as Owen, who also favored establishment of a department of health and was the author of a bill to outlaw child labor. The expedient of requiring these measures only in federal employment and government contracts was a bow toward the sensibilities of more conservative Democrats. With the president"s approval, however, the platform committee at the convention added a statement in favor of a comprehensive child labor law. Wilson"s woman suffrage plank fell short of the const.i.tutional amendment that the suffrage organizations wanted and the Progressives had earlier endorsed. Yet for all its shortcomings, his platform marked a great leap forward for the Democrats in social and labor reform, while to recommend woman suffrage by any means was revolutionary in a party that up to now had shunned the issue. In the rest of the platform, Wilson touted the earlier accomplishments of the New Freedom and emphasized aid to farmers, particularly through the rural-credits program.

This courting of Progressives would later lead some interpreters to claim that Wilson was changing his ideological spots. In their view, he was forsaking the New Freedom"s limited government progressivism in order to embrace the New Nationalism"s more thoroughgoing reforms. Moreover, so they would argue, he did it strictly for reasons of expediency-solely because he needed Progressives" votes in order to beat the Republicans in a two-party contest. Those interpreters misread him badly. Rather than grudgingly doing something he had to do, he was gladly doing something he wanted to do. He was indeed practicing expediency-but to him, as a Burkean, that was a virtue. "I feel sorry for any President of the United States who does not recognize every great movement in the Nation," he avowed early in July. "The minute he stops recognizing, it, he becomes a back number." Most tellingly, he did not embrace Roosevelt"s approval of collective bigness and vision of transcendent nationalism. The appointment of Brandeis, the arch-prophet of compet.i.tion and small-scale enterprise, showed that Wilson had not budged in his devotion to the central tenets of the New Freedom. In his platform draft, he boasted that the Democrats had enacted "reforms which were obviously needed to clear away privilege, prevent unfair discrimination and release the energies of men of all ranks and advantages." He was betting that Roosevelt"s followers loved the means of the New Nationalism more than the ends.3 This wooing of Progressives got a boost when the Republicans met in Chicago for their convention on June 7. Roosevelt harbored hopes that his former party might overlook his recent apostasy and nominate him again. He based those hopes on his having shelved domestic reform issues in favor of militant foreign policies and heated attacks on Wilson for more than a year. In March, in a remark that became famous, Roosevelt practically dared the Republicans to nominate him: "It would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has in its mood something of the heroic." The Republicans" convention dashed those hopes. Their platform did strike a belligerent note on Mexico, but it took a vague, equivocal stand on the submarine issue, denouncing Wilson"s "shifty expedients" but also demanding "all our rights as a neutral without fear or favor"-a transparent bid for German American support. Domestically, the 1916 Republican platform was more conservative than the one Taft had run on four years earlier: it denounced the lowered tariff, condemned extravagance and incompetence, and ducked most of the current reform issues, as well as immigration restriction and prohibition.4 The delegates brushed aside all talk of picking Roosevelt, and on June 10 they nominated Charles Evans Hughes, who promptly resigned from the Supreme Court to run as their candidate. The delegates brushed aside all talk of picking Roosevelt, and on June 10 they nominated Charles Evans Hughes, who promptly resigned from the Supreme Court to run as their candidate.

The Republicans thought they had the perfect candidate, and given the party"s situation in 1916, they were right. The fifty-four-year-old Hughes had all the right qualifications. He was from New York, the state with the biggest electoral vote, and he had served two terms as governor, the office that Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland had held and that had supplied two other major-party presidential nominees in the last half century. Hughes had won the governorship in 1906 by defeating someone not just conservatives but also most respectable people feared and loathed-the demagogic newspaper tyc.o.o.n William Randolph Hearst. As governor, Hughes had shown himself to be a strong administrator and an energetic public speaker. He had held his party"s bosses at arm"s length and pushed through a moderate reform program. He first attracted attention as a potential presidential candidate in 1908 and again as a possible compromise choice in 1912. Best of all, from the Republicans" standpoint in 1916, he had sat on the Supreme Court since 1910. That judicial seat had removed him completely from the party"s internecine bloodletting and, therefore, made him acceptable in all quarters.5 For Wilson, Hughes promised to be almost as formidable a foe as Roosevelt had been. As with Roosevelt, the two men had known each other and enjoyed pleasant relations for some years. They had first met nine years earlier, when they shared the speakers" platform at the Jamestown, Virginia, tercentenary celebration, and had enjoyed staying together as guests in the same house; years later, in his autobiographical notes, Hughes remembered Wilson reciting a risque limerick. During the past three years, the two men had met from time to time in Washington, and a special bond arose between them because Wilson"s son-in-law Frank Sayre was a law school cla.s.smate and close friend of Hughes"s son. By coincidence, the Wilsons and the Hugheses had gone to dinner at the McAdoos" the day the president announced Brandeis"s nomination to the Supreme Court. Brandeis himself was there too, and Wilson had taken the arm of another of the guests, the irascible and anti-Semitic justice James McReynolds, and said, "Permit me to introduce you to Mr. Brandeis, your next colleague on the Bench."6 Personally, the justice and the president had a lot in common. Hughes was also a minister"s son with a parent born in England-his father, a Welshman, was a Baptist clergyman with high moral and intellectual standards. Many people who met Hughes compared him to Wilson because he was not a gregarious sort, and professional politicians often found him cold and aloof. Despite those similarities, differences separated them, both physical and intellectual. Hughes had almost as long a jaw as Wilson, but he concealed his with a full beard, which he parted in the middle and combed to the sides. In his earlier years, his rapid-fire delivery and mobile facial expressions on the speaking platform had earned him the nickname of Animated Feather Duster. More recently, his beard had turned gray, giving him a stern look. That look, combined with his reserved manner, earned Hughes such less-fond epithets as "bearded lady" and "bearded iceberg" and, from Roosevelt, "whiskered Wilson." But unlike the president, he had enjoyed law school and had graduated first in his cla.s.s. He had been a highly successful Wall Street lawyer and had first gained public notice as a special prosecutor in well-publicized investigations of fraud in the insurance industry. As governor, Hughes had sometimes clashed with his state"s party bosses but had never battled them in the spectacular way Wilson had battled New Jersey"s bosses. Hughes was a warm family man with a well-cloaked sense of humor, but he lacked the playful streak that Wilson showed when he twitted McReynolds at that dinner.

How strong a race Hughes would run in 1916 depended in part on Roosevelt. The Progressives desperately desired their hero to run again-he offered them their only hope of staying afloat as a party. At the Progressive convention, which was meeting in Chicago at the same time as the Republicans, the delegates defied Roosevelt"s orders and nominated him a few minutes before the Republicans nominated Hughes. Roosevelt immediately telegraphed to decline, and he added insult to injury by suggesting that the Progressives might nominate a conservative who had opposed their party-Lodge. Angry cries erupted. Delegates took off their Roosevelt badges, threw them on the floor, and stomped out of the hall. Wilson and the Democrats would have preferred to have Roosevelt run again and split the opposition as before, but the bitter taste left by his behavior meant that many Progressives" votes were up for grabs. Roosevelt was already straining to steer them toward Hughes. He announced his endors.e.m.e.nt of the Republican nominee, though he told a friend, "I do wish the bearded iceberg had acted a little differently during the last six months so as to enable us to put more heart into the campaign for him."7 By contrast, Wilson"s emerging campaign was coming together splendidly. The Democrats" national chairman, the unstable William McCombs, could have posed a problem. Wilson delegated the business of getting rid of him to House. The colonel, in turn, enlisted the help of the financier Bernard Baruch, who extracted a letter of resignation from McCombs, to take effect at the end of the convention. As his replacement, House suggested Vance McCormick, a wealthy newspaper publisher from Pennsylvania, who was prominent among the state"s more progressive Democrats. After some hesitation and because several other men declined to be considered, Wilson agreed to McCormick"s appointment, and the forty-four-year-old bachelor turned out to be an effective campaign manager. With the a.s.sistance of two able operatives, Robert Woolley and Daniel Roper, he a.s.sembled a large, efficient headquarters in New York. There were also regional offices around the country and divisions that targeted appeals to labor, women, the foreign born, and other interest groups, together with a publicity bureau that produced reams of printed material, sound recordings, and movies.8 House"s role in McCormick"s selection signaled his temporarily renewed involvement in party affairs. For all his conniving and furtive-ness, the colonel could be a source and conduit for novel ideas. He showed this when Wilson was in New York in May for Grayson"s wedding. In a hurried discussion that included both foreign affairs and party matters, House suggested a cabinet appointment for Martin Glynn, a former governor of New York, who was to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. Wilson, House noted, "thought the country would not approve of his putting a Catholic in the Cabinet." House disagreed "and contended that the country would not object in the slightest. What they do object to is having the President"s Secretary a Catholic." To House"s surprise, Wilson responded to this slam at Tumulty by asking the colonel to suggest a replacement. "I asked him, when he would make the change," House noted, "and he again surprised me by saying, "immediately, if I can find the right man. I will offer Tumulty something else." "9 Then, after discussing other party affairs, House made a much bolder suggestion-for the vice presidency: We talked of ... whether we should sidetrack Marshall and give the nomination to [Newton] Baker. He felt that Baker was too good a man to be sacrificed. I disagreed with him. I did not think that any man was too good to be considered for Vice President of the United States. I thought if the right man took it, a man who has his confidence as Baker has, a new office could be created out of it. He might become Vice President in fact as well as in name, and be a co-worker and co-helper of the President. He was interested in this argument but was unconvinced that Baker should be, as he termed it, sacrificed. He was afraid he could not educate the people in four years up to the possibilities of this office. He reminded me that no Vice President had ever succeeded a President by election.10 Neither man could know that three years later Wilson would suffer a stroke and thereby precipitate the worst crisis of presidential disability in the nation"s history. That crisis might have been handled better if Wilson had responded differently to House"s suggestion. Even without intimations of mortality, he could and should have warmed to the idea. House was speaking for other high-placed Democrats when he proposed dumping Vice President Marshall, who had been practically invisible during the preceding three years. Though no dynamo, Marshall was not entirely to blame for his invisibility. Leaders at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue largely ignored him, and Wilson saw him only when he addressed a joint session of Congress or attended official functions. Marshall"s home state of Indiana was one the Democrats wanted to carry, but Baker"s Ohio offered a much richer electoral prize-second only to New York. A month later, Wilson would soon show how much carrying Ohio was on his mind when he filled the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by Hughes"s resignation with an Ohioan. After consulting with Newton Baker and the Democratic former governor of Ohio, he named John Hessin Clarke, a federal judge from Cleveland with a reputation as a progressive and friend of labor.

More than short-run political calculations commended replacing Marshall with Baker. The idea of a vice president who might serve as a co-president should have appealed to Wilson. Having spent much of life studying political systems and inst.i.tutions, he was better equipped than anyone else to grasp the merits of this idea. Having an able and trusted vice president such as Baker at his side during his second term could have made a big difference in management and policy, particularly when it became a wartime presidency. Why Wilson"s political imagination failed him at this moment is a troubling question. House left a couple of clues as to possible answers. First, he sprang the suggestion at the end of a hurried meeting. Second, in his last remark Wilson made an elementary error of fact: four vice presidents had gone on to be elected president-John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and, most recently and most pertinently, Theodore Roosevelt. "The President showed some signs of fatigue," House noted, "and it was time for him to call for Mrs. Wilson to take her to the wedding."11 It was unfortunate-perhaps tragic-that such great consequences could hang on such ordinary things as timing, fatigue, and personal engagements. It was unfortunate-perhaps tragic-that such great consequences could hang on such ordinary things as timing, fatigue, and personal engagements.

The Democratic convention that opened in St. Louis on June 14 was all Wilson"s show. He instructed the convention managers to stress patriotism. Flags festooned the hall where the Democrats met, and there were lots of patriotic songs. He, along with Tumulty and House, read and approved the keynote speech in advance. Ex-governor Glynn of New York, following instructions, played the patriotic card by using the undefined term "Americanism" as a refrain, but Glynn"s speech took on a life of its own when he declared that the United States would stay out of war. The delegates exploded in applause. From there on, as Glynn recited times in American history when the nation had not gone to war, shouts arose, "Go on, go on." As he went on, the crowd would roar, "What did we do?" and Glynn would shout, "We didn"t go to war."12 On the second day of the convention, the delegates" enthusiasm soared, and the peace theme got powerful reinforcement. Senator Ollie James of Kentucky, a burly man with a trumpeting voice, touted "a courage that must be able to stand bitter abuse; a courage that moves slowly, acts coolly, and strikes no blow as long as diplomacy can be employed." As a shining example of such courage, James pointed to Wilson"s handling of the submarine challenge: "Without orphaning a single American child, without widowing a single American mother, without firing a single gun, without the shedding of a single drop of blood, he wrung from the most militant spirit that ever brooded above a battlefield an acknowledgment of American rights and an agreement to American demands." Later in the day, cries arose from the floor, "Bryan!" "Bryan!" The Great Commoner was in the press box because enemies among the Nebraska Democrats had denied him a seat as a delegate. The convention suspended the rules to allow him to speak. Literally weeping with joy, Bryan called this convention "a love feast." He brushed aside past differences and praised Wilson for having enacted so many important reforms, and he avowed, "I join the American people in thanking G.o.d that we have a President who does not want this nation plunged into this war."13 On the third and final day, the delegates dispensed with a roll call and renominated the president and vice president by acclamation. They likewise adopted the platform, to which the committee had added to Wilson"s draft the statement: "In particular, we commend to the American people the splendid diplomatic victories of our great President, who has preserved the vital interests of our Government and its citizens, and kept us out of war." This was the origin of the campaign cry "He kept us out of war."14 In all, Wilson could feel pleased with his party"s handiwork at St. Louis. The speakers and the delegates may have beaten the peace drum a bit too hard for his taste, but everything else had gone his way, and he was ready and eager to face the voters. In all, Wilson could feel pleased with his party"s handiwork at St. Louis. The speakers and the delegates may have beaten the peace drum a bit too hard for his taste, but everything else had gone his way, and he was ready and eager to face the voters.

Before he could plunge into the campaign, he had some welcome business of governing to attend to. The summer months of 1916 offered him a brief reprise of the first year of his presidency, when he had been able to give greater attention to domestic affairs, particularly legislative leadership. Thanks to the resolution of the submarine controversy, the country was no longer teetering on the brink of the world war, and the main diplomatic controversies now involved the British. The greater urgency of the submarine controversy had previously offered cover to the leaders in London as they tightened their blockade, and the main advocate of sensitivity and caution toward the United States, Sir Edward Grey, had lost influence. Others in the government who favored a harder line, particularly Lloyd George, maintained that the Americans would submit to any restrictions so long as they made money from the war. Now the British had to face the consequences of their att.i.tudes and actions.

During the summer of 1916, two of their blockade practices drew angry reactions from the American public and the Wilson administration. One was intercepting and opening mail from Americans who were suspected of having ties with the Germans. The British did not respond to diplomatic protests. The second practice was the compiling of a list of businesses suspected of trading with the Germans. This "blacklist" drew denunciations from the press and objections from the State Department. Wilson shared the widespread disgust with the British. "I am, I must admit, about at the end of my patience with Great Britain and the Allies," he told House in July. "This black list business is the last straw." Evidently presuming that the colonel would contact Grey, he warned, "I am seriously considering asking Congress to authorize me to prohibit loans and restrict exportations to the Allies."15 Compounding those troubles for the British was widespread revulsion in America over what was happening in Ireland. On April 24, 1916, revolutionaries had mounted an armed uprising in Dublin that opened what would become a b.l.o.o.d.y six-year conflict that would lead finally to independence for Ireland. The British army brutally suppressed this Easter Rising and had its leaders shot after summary military proceedings. One incident in particular attracted international attention: the capture and sham trial of the Irish nationalist Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt. Despite appeals for clemency from the pope and a resolution by the U.S. Senate asking that Cas.e.m.e.nt"s life be spared, the British executed him. Those acts understandably stirred wrath among Irish Americans, an important Democratic const.i.tuency. More generally, British behavior in Ireland ignited latent Anglophobia that stretched back to the Revolution and the War of 1812 and had flared up periodically since then. The British seemed intent on proving that they were only marginally less brutal than the Germans. Ireland damaged their moral standing in American eyes the way Belgium had done for the Germans.

One American felt particularly acute pain at this turn of events. In August, Amba.s.sador Walter Page came home for the first time in three years, hoping to smooth the waters. In Washington, he found negative feelings toward Britain. After several frustrating encounters at the State Department and repeated delays, Page wrangled a private talk in September with his old friend Wilson. It was a painful meeting. Wilson said that he had "started out as heartily in sympathy as any man [could] be," Page recorded immediately afterward. Then, however, England "[h]ad gone on as she wished," ignoring "the rights of others," and that had hurt America"s "pride," which was also Wilson"s pride. Page also wrote, "He described the war as a result of many causes-some of long origin. He spoke of England"s having the earth and Germany"s wanting it." For such an impa.s.sioned champion of the Allies, these revelations of Wilson"s thinking were disheartening. For Page personally, the encounter marked a parting of the ways in a friendship that dated back more than thirty years, to the time when they had been a pair of ambitious young southerners yearning to make their mark in the world.16 Actually, diplomatic friction with the British did not rank high among Wilson"s concerns. Besides his reelection campaign, he cared most about the reform measures that would round out the second installment of the New Freedom. First on the legislative agenda were child labor and workmen"s compensation laws. In February, the House had easily pa.s.sed a child labor bill, but in the Senate, Democrats stalled action on Robert Owen"s version. A measure to provide workmen"s compensation for federal employees pa.s.sed the House virtually without opposition but also languished in the Senate. The Republicans were using the failure to act on those bills in their campaign propaganda. Wilson broke the stalemate by going to the Capitol, where he met with Democratic senators in the President"s Room and urged pa.s.sage of the bills both because they merited pa.s.sage and because they would honor pledges in the party"s platform. The Senate pa.s.sed the workmen"s compensation bill without a recorded vote. Some southern Democrats continued to oppose the child labor bill as an intrusion on state rights and as a blow to their region"s cheap labor, but they did not resort to a filibuster, and the bill pa.s.sed by a vote of 52 to 12. Wilson signed it into law at a White House ceremony on September 1, declaring, "I want to say that with real emotion I sign this bill, because I know ... what it is going to mean to the health and to the vigor of the country, and also to the happiness of those whom it affects."17 Two other pieces of legislation enacted in 1916 were becoming flash points of conflict in the presidential campaign. One was the Revenue Act of 1916, whose curious history involved Wilson only marginally. It stemmed from the preparedness program, which was going to cost $300 million in new spending. The Treasury Department proposed to raise most of that money through excise taxes, which would fall most heavily on middle- and lower-income Americans. Bryanite Democrats on Capitol Hill rose up in revolt, charging that this tax burden was unfair, and besides, the rich and big business should pay for the military spending because they were the ones who were pushing for it. In the House, Claude Kitchin"s position as both majority leader and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee gave him the opportunity to write such views into law with a revenue bill that doubled the income tax rate, raised the surtax on high incomes, and levied the first federal inheritance tax. The bill also included a special tax on the profits of the munitions industry. McAdoo pressed Wilson to try to get changes, but the president stayed out of the conflict. In heated debate on the House floor, Republicans denounced the bill as a raid by southerners and westerners on the hard-earned, well-deserved wealth of the Northeast and Midwest; they were raising a sectional argument that would become one of their favorite battle cries in the campaign. On July 10, the House pa.s.sed the revenue bill by a largely partisan vote of 240 to 140.18 In the Senate, La Follette led the fight to keep the revenue bill in the form pa.s.sed by the House. Acting with Democrats, he succeeded and also got the surcharge on high incomes raised further and the inheritance tax doubled. In angry floor debate, a Democrat and a Republican nearly got into a fistfight, but the bill pa.s.sed on September 5, by a vote of 42 to 16. All thirty-seven Democrats voting were in favor, and all the negative votes came from Republicans. Also supporting the bill were five Republican insurgents: La Follette, George Norris, Albert c.u.mmins, William Kenyon of Iowa, and Moses Clapp of Minnesota. Wilson involved himself only once, when he got Democratic senators to add amendments empowering the president to retaliate against nations that restricted American trade-a measure aimed at Britain"s blockade. Final pa.s.sage came on September 7, and Wilson signed the bill into law the next day. The debates and votes on the Revenue Act in both houses again showed how party lines continued to be redrawn over progressive issues, as both parties appealed to their sectional core const.i.tuencies.19 The other piece of legislation that fed conflict in the campaign mandated an eight-hour day for workers on interstate railroads. The eight-hour day had been organized labor"s holy grail for nearly half a century, and it was the main demand of railroad unions in negotiations in the summer of 1916. Management refused to consider it, and Secretary of Labor William Wilson tried to mediate. When the secretary"s efforts failed early in August, President Wilson met separately with union leaders and railroad presidents. Neither side would budge, and the unions called a strike to begin on September 4. Such a strike spelled disaster for the economy and posed a threat to national security. After conferring briefly with Democratic congressional leaders, the president went to the Capitol on August 29 to address a joint session of Congress. Observers noted that the president seemed informally dressed for such an occasion: he wore a blue jacket and white flannel trousers. In fact, he meant his attire to suggest national security considerations: it was the same outfit he had worn when he marched in the preparedness parade on Flag Day. He told the congressmen and senators that management"s intransigence forced him to ask them to establish an eight-hour day for railroad workers by law. He also asked for stronger federal mediation powers, greater ICC oversight of railroads, and presidential authority to take over and run the railroads in the event of military necessity.20 Democratic congressional leaders, though generally approving, balked at anything beyond the eight-hour day, and Wilson reluctantly agreed to a stripped-down measure. Bearing the name of the chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, William C. Adamson of Georgia, it quickly pa.s.sed, by a vote of 239 to 56, again mainly along party lines. In the Senate, Republicans denounced the measure as cla.s.s legislation and a craven surrender to union threats-charges that would become another favorite campaign cry-but it pa.s.sed quickly by a vote of 43 to 28, even more clearly along party lines. Among Democrats, forty-two favored the bill and only two-both southerners-opposed it. Among Republicans, only one, La Follette, voted in favor, and twenty-six voted against, including such insurgents as George Norris, Albert c.u.mmins, and William Borah. The next day, Wilson signed the Adamson Act into law aboard his private railroad car at Washington"s Union Station. The location was symbolic, as was the timing: Wilson was returning from giving his acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination.21 The Adamson Act marked the biggest extension of government power that Wilson ever asked for in peacetime and was the boldest intervention in labor relations that any president had yet attempted. It offered a fitting capstone to the second installment of the New Freedom. None of the measures enacted in 1916 was as monumental as the Federal Reserve, but most of them rivaled tariff revision and the anti-trust law in their lasting significance. Significant income tax rates and the inheritance tax of the Revenue Act would remain in place for the rest of the twentieth century. Aid to farmers and the shipping and tariff boards would likewise remain and pave the way for further action in those areas two decades later under the New Deal. A controversial Supreme Court decision would strike down the child labor law two years later, but that law would serve as the model for a permanent prohibition of child labor, also under the New Deal. Furthermore, the elevation of Brandeis to the Supreme Court rewarded the chief architect, besides Wilson, of the New Freedom, and it gave the Court one of its great justices, one who would open the way for more liberal and more flexible jurisprudence.

Wilson played a different part in pa.s.sing these measures than he had played in the pa.s.sage of the first New Freedom legislation. This time, he did not create a program in advance, and he did not involve himself as much in shepherding its parts through Congress. Much of the initiative came from progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill, and Wilson"s contribution often lay in giving them their head or stiffening their resolve. Even so, he played a critical role. As before, he kept his congressional supporters at their tasks and on course. Moreover, he had to overcome new obstacles, in addition to the distractions of foreign affairs. Democrats now had a sharply reduced majority in the House, and Bryan no longer stood at the president"s side to serve as chief lobbyist and legislative liaison.

Like its predecessor, this installment of the New Freedom was also a party program. Except for La Follette, Republicans did little to help frame, and increasingly opposed, these measures. Some of that was probably unavoidable, given the conservatives" firm control of the party and the collapse of the Progressives. In all, Wilson could take great pride in this second round of legislative accomplishment. The New Freedom was alive and well.

Wilson"s looming campaign for reelection made the summer of 1916 different from the preceding months of his presidency. Both he and Hughes, unlike Roosevelt earlier, observed the old custom of waiting for the notification ceremony to deliver their opening speeches. The challenger got a month"s head start, giving his acceptance speech on July 31 to an audience of 3,000 at Carnegie Hall in New York. What should have been a rousing opener to Hughes"s campaign fell flat as the candidate droned on, delivering carping criticisms of the Wilson administration and offering few positive alternatives. In foreign policy, he sounded tough but vague; on the league of nations idea, he sounded like Wilson when he called for "the development of international organization" and affirmed that "there is no national isolation in the world of the Twentieth Century." Most observers were disappointed with the speech, but one was delighted. Wilson told Bernard Baruch he was following "the rule never to murder a man who is committing suicide." Later, he softened a bit, saying he felt sorry for Hughes: "He is in a hopelessly false position. He dare not have opinions: He would be sure to offend some important section of his following." Remembering the Animated Feather Duster, some commentators expressed amazement that Hughes could give such a limp performance. He later explained that his campaign skills had grown rusty after six years on the Supreme Court.22 Things got better for the Republican candidate when he made a tour in August that took him to the West Coast and back. Hughes made a bold move of his own by going beyond the Republican platform"s vague language on woman suffrage to endorse a const.i.tutional amendment. He also recovered some of his wonted vigor as he lambasted Wilson for weakness toward Mexico, and he sometimes made a good personal impression. "Gosh!" one North Dakota farmer reportedly exclaimed. "He ain"t so inhuman after all."23 When the campaign train reached California, however, the trip turned into a comedy of errors. The local managers, who were conservative Republicans, did not serve Hughes well. In San Francisco, they scheduled an event at a hotel where the workers were on strike, and they refused to move to another location. As a result, Hughes wound up crossing a picket line and offending the city"s strong union movement. When the campaign train reached California, however, the trip turned into a comedy of errors. The local managers, who were conservative Republicans, did not serve Hughes well. In San Francisco, they scheduled an event at a hotel where the workers were on strike, and they refused to move to another location. As a result, Hughes wound up crossing a picket line and offending the city"s strong union movement.

A still worse misstep in California involved internal party strife. The Republicans" split in 1912 had hurt them there badly because Governor Hiram Johnson, who was the Progressive vice-presidential nominee, had kept Taft and the regular Republicans off the ballot. In 1914, California was the only place where the Progressives did not collapse. Now, in 1916, the pugnacious governor grudgingly followed Roosevelt back into the Republican fold, and he was running hard for the party"s nomination for senator. That situation posed a dilemma for Hughes. He did not think he could endorse Johnson"s senatorial bid, but he desperately wanted the governor to share the campaign platform with him. Between Johnson"s notoriously p.r.i.c.kly personality and the machinations of conservatives, no joint appearance or even a meeting came off. Worst of all-in the most notorious incident of the campaign-the nominee and the governor spent several hours on the same day in the same hotel in Long Beach without seeing each other. When he learned of the fiasco, Hughes immediately apologized, but the damage was done. Stories about his "snub" of the governor raced around the state, and Johnson declined all requests for a meeting. The governor won the senate primary and dutifully endorsed the Republican ticket. Hughes later believed that the incident cost him the state-and the election.24 Wilson"s campaign got off to a later start because he had to stay in Washington to attend to public business, yet the delay gave him an advantage. The last measures of the New Freedom helped his reelection prospects much more than any speeches or tours. Moreover, because he was president, Wilson could speak out in ways that ostensibly were non-political but really advanced his campaign. On July 4, he dedicated the new American Federation of Labor building, and with Gompers and other union leaders present, he lauded labor over capital for being "in immediate contact with the task itself-with the work, with the conditions of the work." Two weeks later, he dropped the nonpartisan mask when he told a convention of patronage-appointed postmasters, "The Democratic party is cohesive. Some other parties are not."25 Those speeches and his remarks when he signed the rural-credits and child labor laws served as warm-ups for his acceptance of the Democratic nomination. To reestablish his political base in New Jersey, he rented an oceanside estate at Long Branch, called Shadow Lawn, where on September 2, in a setting reminiscent of Sea Girt four years before, he met the delegation from the Democratic convention and delivered his acceptance speech. Those speeches and his remarks when he signed the rural-credits and child labor laws served as warm-ups for his acceptance of the Democratic nomination. To reestablish his political base in New Jersey, he rented an oceanside estate at Long Branch, called Shadow Lawn, where on September 2, in a setting reminiscent of Sea Girt four years before, he met the delegation from the Democratic convention and delivered his acceptance speech.

As expected, Wilson praised the party"s accomplishments and declared that the Democrats had kept the promises they had made in 1912. He also pitched a frank appeal to Roosevelt"s erstwhile followers: "This record must equally astonish those who feared that the Democratic Party had not opened its heart to comprehend the demands of social justice. We have in four years come very near to carrying out the platform of the Progressive Party as well as our own; for we also are progressives." Most o

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