Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him | Page 6

my candidate, unfortunately, lost. My Irish buoyancy and good nature brought me over the line. I felt that the audience in the gallery and the delegates on the floor were with me, but unfortunately for my cause, the boss, who was always the dominating influence of the Convention, was against me, and so we lost in the spirited fight we made. In this first skirmish of my political career I made up my mind to meet defeat with good grace and, if possible, smilingly, and no sore spot or resentment over our defeat ever showed itself in my attitude toward the men who saw fit to oppose us. Evidently, the boss and his friends appreciated this attitude, for it was reported to me shortly after the Convention that I was to be given recognition and by the boss's orders would soon be placed on the eligible list for future consideration in connection with a place on the legislative ticket.
One lesson I learned was not to be embittered by defeat. Since then I have seen too many cases of men so disgruntled at being worsted in their first battles that their political careers ended when they should have been just beginning.

CHAPTER III
MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE POLITICAL BOSS
After serving my apprenticeship as a ward worker, devoted friends from my home ward urged my name upon the Democratic leader, Mr. Robert Davis, for a place upon the Democratic legislative ticket for Hudson County. I had grown to have a deep regard and affection for this fine old fellow. While he was a boss in every sense, maintaining close relations with the Public Service Corporations of the state, he had an engaging human side. He never pretended nor deceived. With his friends he was open, frank, generous, and honourable in all his dealings, and especially kind to and considerate of the young men who became part of his working force. With his political enemies he was fair and decent. Many a time during a legislative session, when I was a member of the House of Assembly, word would come to us of the boss's desire that we should support this or that bill, behind which certain corporate interests lay. The orders, however, were clean and without a threat of any kind. He took no unfair advantage and made no reprisals when we failed to carry out his desires.
While a member of the New Jersey Legislature, the name of Woodrow Wilson began to be first discussed in the political world of New Jersey. It came about in this way: By reason of the normal Republican majority of the state the nomination by the Legislature in those days of a Democratic candidate for the United States senatorship was a mere compliment, a courtesy, a very meagre one indeed, and was generally paid to the old war horses of democracy like James E. Martine, of Plainfield, New Jersey; but the appearance of the doughty Colonel Harvey on the scene, at the 1907 session of the New Jersey Legislature, gave a new turn to this custom. A request was made by Colonel Harvey and diplomatically conveyed by his friends to the Democratic members of the Legislature, that the honorary nomination for the United States senatorship at this session of the Legislature should be given to President Wilson of Princeton. It may be added that I learned years afterward that Mr. Wilson was not a party to Colonel Harvey's plans; that once he even sent a friend as an emissary to explain to the Colonel that Mr. Wilson did not believe that the use of his name in connection with political office was a service to him or to Princeton University.
The suggestion that Woodrow Wilson be given the nomination was hotly resented by young men like myself in the Legislature. Frankly, I led the opposition to the man I was afterward to serve for eleven years in the capacity of private secretary. The basis of my opposition to Mr. Wilson for this empty honour was the rumour that had been industriously circulated in the state House and elsewhere, that there was, as Mr. Dooley says, "a plan afoot" by the big interests of New Jersey and New York to nominate Woodrow Wilson for the senatorship and then nominate him for governor of the state as a preliminary start for the Presidency. I remember now, with the deepest chagrin and regret, having bitterly assailed Woodrow Wilson's candidacy in a Democratic caucus which I attended and how I denounced him for his alleged opposition to labour. In view of my subsequent intimacy with Mr. Wilson and the knowledge gained of his great heart and his big vision in all matters affecting labour, I cannot now point with pride to the speech I then made attacking him. I am sure the