if there does not emerge from the pages a
human-hearted man, a man whose passion it was to serve mankind. In
his daily intercourse with individuals he showed uniform consideration,
at times deep 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
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