Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him | Page 3

tenderness, though he did not have in his possession the little bag of tricks which some politicians use so effectively: he did not clap men on their backs, call them by their first names, and profess to each individual he met that of all the men in the world this was the man whom he most yearned to see. Perhaps he was too sincere for that; perhaps by nature too reserved; but I am convinced that he who reads this book will feel that he has met a man whose public career was governed not merely by a great brain, but also by a great heart. I did not invent this character. I observed him for eleven years.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
. THE POLITICAL LABORATORY II. DOING THE POLITICAL CHORES III. MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE POLITICAL BOSS IV. COLONEL HARVEY ON THE SCENE V. THE NEW JERSEY SALIENT VI. SOMETHING NEW IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS VII. THE CRISIS OP THE CAMPAIGN VIII. THE END OP THE CAMPAIGN IX. A PARTY SPLIT X. EXIT THE OLD GUARD XI. EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP XII. COLONEL HARVEY XIII. THE "COCKED HAT" INCIDENT XIV. WILSON AND THE OLD GUARD XV. MR. BRYAN ISSUES A CHALLENGE XVI. THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION XVII. FACING A SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY XVIII. WILLIAM F. McCOMBS XIX. THE INAUGURATION OF 1913 XX. MEXICO XXI. PANAMA TOLLS XXII. REFORMING THE CURRENCY XXIII. RENOMINATED XXIV. THE ADAMSON LAW XXV. GERMAN PROPAGANDA XXVI. WILSON AND HUGHES XXVII. NEUTRALITY XXVIII. PREPAREDNESS XXIX. THE GREAT DECLARATION XXX. CARRYING ON XXXI. THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD XXXII. COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND GENERAL WOOD XXXIII. WILSON THE WARRIOR XXXIV. GERMANY CAPITULATES XXXV. APPEAL FOR A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS XXXVI. THE GREAT ADVENTURE XXXVII. WILSON--THE LONE HAND XXXVIII. JAPAN--SHANTUNG XXXIX. IRELAND XL. PROHIBITION XLI. THE TREATY FIGHT XLII. THE WESTERN TRIP XLIII. RESERVATIONS XLIV. WILSON--THE HUMAN BEING XLV. THE SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION XLVI. THE LAST DAY
APPENDIX
INDEX

WOODROW WILSON AS I KNOW HIM

CHAPTER I
THE POLITICAL LABORATORY
My introduction to politics was in the Fifth Ward of Jersey City, New Jersey, which for many years was the "Bloody Angle" of politics of the city in which I lived. Always Democratic, it had been for many years the heart and centre of what New Jersey Democrats were pleased to call the great Gibraltar of Democracy. The ward in which I lived was made up of the plainest sort of people, a veritable melting pot of all races, but with a predominance of Irish, Germans, and Italians, between whom it was, like ancient Gaul, divided into three parts.
My dear father, Philip Tumulty, a wounded soldier of the Civil War, after serving an apprenticeship as an iron moulder under a delightful, whole- souled Englishman, opened a little grocery store on Wayne Street, Jersey City, where were laid the foundation stones of his modest fortune and where, by his fine common sense, poise, and judgment, he soon established himself as the leader of a Democratic faction in that neighbourhood. This modest little place soon became a political laboratory for me. In the evening, around the plain, old-fashioned counters, seated upon barrels and boxes, the interesting characters of the neighbourhood gathered, representing as they did the leading active political forces in that quaint cosmopolitan community.
No matter how far back my memory turns, I cannot recall when I did not hear politics discussed--not ward politics only, but frequently the politics of the nation and the world. In that grocery store, from the lips of the plainest folk who came there, were carried on serious discussions of the tariff, the money question, our foreign relations, and all phases of the then famous Venezuelan question, which in those days threatened to set two continents on fire.
The make-up of the little "cabinet" or group which surrounded my father was most interesting. There was Mr. Alexander Hamill, the father of Congressman Hamill of Jersey City, a student of Queen's College in Ireland and who afterward taught in the National Schools of Ireland, a well-read, highly cultured, broad-minded man of affairs; and dear Uncle Jimmie Kelter, almost a centenarian, whose fine old gray hair gave him the appearance of a patriarch. Uncle Jimmie nightly revelled in the recital to those who were present as ready listeners, his experience when he was present at a session of the House of Parliament in London and heard the famous Irish statesman, Daniel O'Connell, denounce England's attitude of injustice toward Catholic emancipation. He loved to regale the little group that encircled him by reciting from memory the great speech of Robert Emmett from the dock, and excerpts from the classic speeches of the leading Irish orators like Curran, Sheridan, and Fox.
While these discussions in the little store wended their uneasy way along, a spark of humour was often injected into them by the delightful banter of a rollicking, good-natured Irishman, a big two-fisted fellow,