“CONSCIENCE doth make cowards of us all.” Not mine—mine made me a politician. At fifty-five years of age, financially independent, and rich in experience, and recently released from the toils of materialism, it ceaselessly confronted me with my duty to pay back, in the form of public service, the overdraft which I had been permitted to make upon the opportunities of this country. Repayment in money alone would not suffice: I must pay in the form of personal service, for which my experience had equipped me. And I must pay now, or never.

It was a great surprise to my friends when, in 1912, I suddenly entered politics, and threw myself heart and soul in the enterprise of securing the Presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson. “Why,” they asked me, “should a man like yourself, whose whole active life has been spent in the thick of the battle for wealth, embark on the untried sea of politics? And why, if you are determined to take the risks of this experiment, do you choose so forlorn a hope, as the cause of the least likely of all the candidates, for the nomination of the party that has elected only one President since the Civil War?”

The answer was as simple to me as it was strange to them. My life had been an intense struggle between idealism and materialism. In youth I had burned with an enthusiasm for the ideal, which had fed alike upon the teachings of the Reverend Dr. Einhorn in my boyhood, the inspiring association which I had enjoyed with a saintly Quaker doctor in New York, the noble messages to which I had listened from Christian ministers, and the austere and lofty ethical philosophy of Dr. Felix Adler.

In early manhood, however, the temptation of materialism had beset me in a familiar form. Shortly after my marriage I had some financial disappointments; and I was compelled to devote more time than I had expected to providing for my family. My intention was to make their future modestly secure, and then to resume my idealistic avocation. I soon found, however, that I had a special gift for making money. By the time I had attained the competency which had been my ambition, I had become fascinated with money-making as a game. Before I realized it, I was immersed in a dozen enterprises, was obligated to a hundred business friends, and, like all my associates, was deeply absorbed in the chase for wealth.

Fortunately, in 1905, the prospect of disaster brought me to my senses. I foresaw the Panic of 1907; and, while others all around me plunged onward toward the brink, I paused and took stock of my future. I began to sever my financial connections. This process of slowing down my business pace gave me time for other introspection; and I realized, with astonishment and dismay, how far the swift tide of business had swept me from the course I had charted for my life in youth. I was ashamed to realize that I had neglected the nobler path of duty. I resolved to retire wholly from active business, and to devote the rest of my life to making good the better resolutions of my boyhood.

It took me some years to divest myself of my business obligations on one hand, and, on the other, to find a practical field for social service. During this period, in which I was “finding myself,” I was attracted to the career of Woodrow Wilson. I admired the courage with which he was fighting the battle of democracy at Princeton. And, in the early months of 1911, I was even more delighted to watch his progress as Governor of New Jersey: the splendid fight he was making there to overthrow the rule of the bosses, and to write into the statutes of the state those seven measures of practical reform which his enemies derisively dubbed the “Seven Sisters.”

“Here,” I said to myself, “is a man who does not merely preach political righteousness; here is a practical reformer. This man has Roosevelt’s gift for the dramatic diagnosis of political diseases; he has Bryan’s moral enthusiasm for political righteousness. But he has qualities which these men lack: these are, the constructive faculty, the imagination to devise remedies, the courage to apply them, and the gift of leadership to put them into effective action.” I wished to know more of this new and promising character. I resolved to find an occasion for meeting him.

Such an opportunity came a few weeks later. As president of the Free Synagogue in New York City, I invited Governor Wilson to be a guest of honour at the dinner in celebration of the fourth anniversary of its foundation. As I presided at the dinner, and as the Governor was seated at my right, it gave me a chance to get acquainted. I found in him at once a congenial spirit, and in that one intense conversation I got more from him than I could have gotten from half a dozen casual meetings.

On my left was the other guest of honour, Senator Borah of Idaho. He and Wilson proved instantly antagonistic. The air was electrical with the clash of their dissimilar temperaments. How startled I would have been, that evening, could I have realized that this discordance of their natures, of which I was at that moment acutely conscious, had in it the seeds of a future battle—an epic struggle, with the White House and the Capitol for its headquarters; the world for its audience; and the destiny of the nations, following the greatest war in history, the prize that was staked on the issue.

I was then, in fact, aware only that I was seated between two men of strong and mutually unsympathetic natures; and that they seemed equally to feel this natural antagonism. Wilson revealed it by his request that he be allowed to speak last: he plainly wished to study his rival before he made his own oratorical appearance. Borah was even more palpably depressed by the presence, at the same table with him, of this strange, new, powerful personality, whose glittering intellect and polished manner were so strikingly contrasted with his own blunter, though, in their way, also powerful weapons and character. The Senator was so disturbed by this impact with Wilson’s personality that his own speech of the evening fell far below his usual high standard. He himself was so deeply impressed with this deficiency that twice afterward he recalled to me his comparative failure of that evening. These two men thus seemed predestined to a combat which with natures so intense and powerful could be nothing less than mortal. When, in 1920, Wilson lost (as I believe, only for the moment) his gallant campaign for the League of Nations, and fell truly a soldier stricken on the field of battle, partly because of blows that were dealt by Senator Borah, I could not but revert in memory to the vivid picture of that evening in New York in 1911, when the two men met and took each other’s measure.

They were not alone in this measuring of mettle. Governor Wilson’s speech of that evening was a revelation to all of us who listened. We saw in him a man of lofty idealism, and a knightly spirit; his convictions grounded on the secure foundation of a deep study of governmental institutions, and of the history of the human race; his political philosophy erected symmetrically upon these firm foundations; its faÇade adorned with a beautiful conception of democracy and justice as the ideals of political endeavour. I, for one, felt that here truly was an inspired leader behind whom all men like myself could range themselves and know that their efforts to advance his fortunes would be an effective participation in the highest form of public service.

My own acceptance of his leadership was instant and decisive. I asked him whether he was really a candidate for President of the United States, and told him that I had a definite object in asking him the question. I was delighted with his reply. Looking me squarely in the eye, he said: “I know a great deal more about the United States than I do about New Jersey.”

“Governor,” I said, “my object in asking you this question was to offer my unreserved moral and financial support of your candidacy.”

The enthusiastic impression I gained upon that evening was confirmed and strengthened two days later, when I attended the dinner of the National Democratic Club, at which the Governor was again a guest of honour. Here, again, he made a speech that was heartening to all who sought leadership in the struggle for the regeneration of America.

Let me remind my readers what the political situation was in 1911. That situation should be recalled in the light of the preceding fourteen years. In that period (which began with the election of William McKinley as President in 1896), the United States had passed through one of the most momentous epochs in its political history. The election of McKinley by the Republicans, under the leadership of Mark Hanna, marked the culmination of thirty years of materialistic growth in this country—three decades in which the energies of the people were absorbed in the conquest of the West, in the building of our gigantic railroad system, and in the magician-like creation of our stupendous manufacturing industries. Pittsburgh was almost the new capital of a new nation, with its marvellous development of iron and steel. It was followed closely by the great manufacturing centres that sprang up in New York, New England, the Middle West, and Alabama. Monstrous fortunes grew up over night from the exploitation of our natural resources, our boundless supplies of coal, iron, oil, zinc, and lead. Masters of industry, like Carnegie and Rockefeller, amassed gold beyond the wildest dreams of even gem-laden Oriental potentates. Masters of transportation like Commodore Vanderbilt and James J. Hill created new empires for the residence of man, and gathered to themselves princely fortunes. Masters of finance, like J. Pierpont Morgan, sat at the golden headwaters of national enterprise, directing the fertilizing streams of credit, and, by taking toll of them as they passed, accumulated an imperial revenue. Below these men were nameless thousands, of only less ability, aping the masters, and dipping with feverish hands into the golden flood. Mingled with these builders were pick-pockets of finance, pirates of promotion, and skulking jackals of commerce. But—all alike were money-mad. From the Morgans and Hills and Rockefellers and Carnegies, who wrought with far-seeing vision, down to the shopkeepers and smallest manufacturers, nine men in ten were absorbed in the game of riches.

Politics, too, had become infected. Public honours were no longer heaped upon patriots and statesmen: the proudest title of distinction was to be called “a captain of industry.” The best brains of the country had been drained out of the public service into business life. Men who, in other days, would have led great public causes, were now presidents of great corporations. Their intellects were taxed to the last limit in the fierce struggle of competition. Their characters were formed and hardened into the inflexible will and ruthless determination of commanders of vast competitive business armies. Men like Morgan, upon whose shoulders rested the responsibility for billions of invested capital, brooked no obstacle that threatened for an instant the security of these vast aggregations of money, nor anything that would stand in the way of their continuous return of profit.

Such gigantic financial operations inevitably affected those inter-relationships of the people which are expressed in law; and organized government soon confronted the danger of being swallowed by organized business. By the close of McKinley’s first administration, government, indeed, had become practically a vassal of business, little better than another instrument of power in the hands of the leaders of industry. Legislation was bought like merchandise; lawmakers and administrators of law were corrupted. Politics had become an almost disreputable profession. Lobbyists of the most odious type flaunted their trade publicly. To the high-minded elements of the community it seemed as if the nation were sliding down the declivity of destruction to share the fate of Rome.

I was myself fresh from this seething caldron of materialistic competition, and I knew personally the men and the methods of Big Business, so that I had occasion to appreciate more keenly than most people the reality of the danger which confronted the nation.

To us perplexed political idealists the country over, who looked on with apprehension at this death grapple between the soul of the people and the ugly octopus of Big Business, the appearance of Woodrow Wilson on the horizon seemed a very act of Providence. Here at last was the leader: the man who, thinking our thoughts, sharing our visions, brought to us the promise of a political personality under whose banner we could range ourselves, organize our enthusiasm, and take fresh hope for redemption.

True, the Democratic Party organization was no better than the Republican. Nevertheless, I recalled with faith the words of that valiant reformer, Carl Schurz, who years before had said:

“Between them [the old parties] stands an element which is not controlled by the discipline of the party organization, but acts upon its own judgment for the public interest. It is the Independent element which in its best sense and shape may be defined as consisting of men who consider it more important that the Government be well administered than that this or that set of men administer it. This Independent element is not very popular with party politicians in ordinary times; but it is very much in requisition when the day of voting comes. It can render inestimable service to the cause of good government by wielding the balance of power it holds with justice and wisdom.”

Here, I thought, in this great body of thoughtful independents of both parties, lies the hope of political regeneration. Woodrow Wilson is the only man in either party who stands out clearly for the things which all of us hold dear. If we can introduce him to these men, if we can lift him up upon a platform high enough to permit his ringing words to reach across the continent, they will rally to his banner as we have done.

It was from these motives, and in this splendid hope, that I threw myself whole-heartedly into what my friends had called a “hopeless cause.” Now was the opportunity to restore idealism to our government; to place man, as of old, above the dollar; to place law once more securely above the greed and personal ambition of the individual. America was very dear to me! I had come to her an alien by race and speech; she had thrown wide open the door of opportunity to me; I had been free to find satisfaction for every one of my ambitions. Surely, the utmost I could do in her service was little enough to repay the just debt I owed her.

Let me return now to the dinner of the National Democratic Club, which I have already mentioned. I sat at a table facing the guests of honour, and before they seated themselves I went up and spoke to Governor Wilson. On a sudden impulse, he exclaimed: “Come along with me, I want to introduce you to someone.” He led me to another table, and there I had my first meeting with Walter Hines Page, who was then editor of the World’s Work magazine, and who was destined later to play such a momentous part in the salvaging of civilization while acting as President Wilson’s Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s. Wilson and Page had been acquainted for many years and they addressed each other familiarly.

“This,” said the Governor, laying his hand on my shoulder, “is the Mr. Morgenthau I talked about to you this afternoon. Now you two get acquainted.” He then returned to the speakers’ table, and Page spoke to me and expressed his hearty satisfaction at welcoming “the latest recruit to the little band of Wilson adherents.” He invited me to call upon him at his place of business, at Garden City, Long Island, for a longer conference.

Two years later Page and I recalled this scene, under very altered circumstances. I stopped in London on my way to Constantinople. There I found Page installed in the American Embassy. When I entered his private office, Page had cleared his room, and we faced each other there alone—Page sitting forward on the edge of his chair, his elbow on the table, his head leaning against his hand, and with the most quizzical and expectant look upon his face. I said to him, “Ambassador, I know what you are thinking about.”

“Well, what?” he challenged.

“You are thinking,” I said, “of the day when the Governor of New Jersey introduced the retired financier to the magazine editor. That was only two years ago; and now what a difference! He is President of the United States; you are here as his Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s; and I am his Ambassador at the Sublime Porte. And you are thinking that it’s mighty funny.”

“No; you’re wrong,” said he.

“Then what are you thinking?”

Still giving me that quizzical look over the top of his glasses, and dropping his voice to the very bottom of his diaphragm, he rumbled, “I was thinking it’s blanked funny!”

Some time after our first meeting I called on Mr. Page at Garden City, and told him I was now ready to immerse myself completely in the campaign; and some months after this William G. McAdoo invited me to join him at a luncheon with William F. McCombs, who was then in full charge of Wilson’s campaign for the nomination. I then agreed to subscribe a substantial sum, and, also, to undertake raising money from others. They accepted both offers gladly. I found the first by far the easier to make good. To redeem the second was a very different matter: my friends in the business world looked upon me almost as one who had lost his reason. “Why,” they asked me, “should any one who has property be willing to entrust the management of the United States to the Democratic Party? How can a reasonable man hope for Wilson’s nomination against veterans like Bryan, Clark, and Underwood? And how can any Democrat hope for victory against the intrenched Republicans?”

It was the hardest proposition that I ever undertook to sell, but we managed somehow to meet our financial emergencies as we came to them.

Meanwhile, the other candidates were busy. William Jennings Bryan had been, for years, at once the prophet and the Nemesis of the Democratic Party. He controlled its national machinery. Thrice he had led it to defeat, and now, for the fourth time, he aspired to lead the charge. Party politicians, who knew that Bryan’s economic heresies were fatal to the party, did not dare call together the national committee, where his discipline ruled their actions. The only other place where party councils could be taken was in the National Capitol. For this reason, the cloakroom of the House of Representatives became the whispering gallery of other aspirants. The House developed two candidates for the nomination: Champ Clark, the genial Speaker; and Oscar Underwood, the popular and substantial floor leader of the majority.

Nevertheless, we adherents of Wilson were not dismayed. Our plan of action was to secure a few state delegations, and, for the rest, to concentrate our energies upon creating, through the press, a sentiment among the Democratic masses, which, we hoped, at the end would prove irresistible in the Convention.

The first great test of our success (and, what was more important, of Wilson’s capacity to grow to national stature) came on the occasion of the Jackson Day dinner at Washington on January 8, 1912. This classic festival of Democracy has, every quadrennium, a special and a solemn significance for candidates for the Presidency. It is somewhat like the opening day of the Kentucky Derby at Louisville, when the favourite horses are led out before the first race for the inspection of the spectators. A seat at this dinner is as much prized by Democratic politicians as a grandstand seat is at the races. The candidates and their managers are as much excited as are the horse owners and their trainers. Upon the showing made at this preliminary try-out depends much of the crystallization of the sentiment amongst the politicians in favour of one special candidate.

Our first experience with this dinner was a disappointment. We men who were active in Governor Wilson’s behalf had our headquarters at the New Willard Hotel; and we had gone there a day earlier to make arrangements for more than one hundred of the leading Democratic politicians and citizens of New Jersey who were coming on to Washington the next day, to back up Wilson’s aspirations. Imagine our dismay when we found that, of the sixty-five tickets for the dinner to which New Jersey was entitled, fifty had been given to Mr. Nugent instead of to Mr. Grosscup, the chairman of the state committee. Mr. Nugent was one of Governor Wilson’s bitterest opponents, and well enough we knew that we could not get back the tickets from him.

News of this blow came to me at 11 o’clock at night, just as I was turning out my light preparatory to retiring. My telephone rang. I heard the excited voice of Judge Hudspeth, the national committeeman from New Jersey, exclaiming: “Come right over to our room! We need you at once!” “But,” I protested, “I am just getting into bed for the night.” “Haven’t you learned yet,” he cried impatiently, “that politicians never sleep?”

Reluctantly, I got back into my clothes and went to his rooms. There I found McCombs, Congressman Hughes, Mr. Grosscup, Joe Tumulty, and others. They were angry at the miscarriage of the tickets, which they attributed to trickery; and gloomy at the thought of the poor showing we would make to our hundred and more friends from New Jersey who were coming down to the dinner, and who would charge us with lack of influence in the higher councils of the party.

I turned the situation over in my mind while they were giving vent to their indignation, and said:

“I think I see a way to turn this mishap into a victory. Let us arrange an overflow dinner for Mr. Wilson’s friends exclusively, and give him an opportunity to show his appreciation of their presence, and to get their inspiration.”

This idea of a separate dinner at the Shoreham Hotel was a happy thought, for at the main dinner at the Raleigh not more than fifteen diners were really friends of Wilson. It was a discouraging outlook for a man who faced the ordeal of trying to win an audience. The overflow meeting solved this difficulty. It gave him the encouragement of an enthusiastic greeting from a large body of his friends before he had to face the unsympathetic audience at the main gathering.

The morning of the day of the dinner Governor Wilson came to Washington and went into conference with Dudley Field Malone, Franklin P. Glass of Alabama, and myself at a luncheon in his room. He was confronted with a serious problem. The newspapers of that very day were full of the letter he had written to Adrian H. Joline, in which he had been guilty of that famous indiscretion of saying that “William Jennings Bryan should be knocked into a cocked hat.” As we sat at luncheon about twenty reporters were waiting outside for Mr. Wilson to give them an explanation of this letter. It might have the gravest political consequences. Bryan was still the most powerful politician in the party, and, though he was not able to gain the nomination for himself, he could easily keep any other man from getting it. Wilson was deeply concerned to find a way out of this difficulty; but though he was greatly worried, I can still recall with what keen appetite he attacked a big steak and plateful of vegetables, while he asked for our suggestions. He listened to us all, and then he said:

“Now, let me bare my mind to you. What did I really mean when I wrote that letter? I have always admired Mr. Bryan as a clean-thinking, progressive citizen. I have always admired his methods of diagnosing the troubles and difficulties of the country. But I have never admired, nor approved, his remedies. What I really meant, then, was that his remedies should be knocked into a cocked hat.”

We then discussed the means by which this explanation should be given to the public. We finally agreed that Wilson should not give it through the press, but should wait until the Jackson Day dinner, that evening, to make his explanation. Malone then went outside and told the reporters our decision.

In the meantime, we had heard that Bryan was not really much annoyed at Wilson, because he realized that the men who were trying to injure Wilson were trying to injure him also. Hence we sent an emissary to Bryan to ask whether he would be willing to speak at our overflow dinner, and though he declined the invitation, he did so graciously.

The main dinner that evening at the Raleigh was attended by more than seven hundred eager politicians from all parts of the country. It was an exciting occasion for everyone, and an occasion of special apprehension for us, because it was Wilson’s dÉbut in national politics.

About midway of that dinner Wilson slipped away from the speakers’ table, and drove over to the Shoreham. There, our happy gathering of a hundred had been kept entertained and enlivened by speeches from Tumulty, Dudley Malone, and others. When Wilson arrived, he found an audience eager to be charmed, and it put him upon his mettle. He gave a very happy speech; and when he left, to return to the Raleigh, there were cheers and felicitations ringing in his ears. It put him in fine feather for his masterly effort of the evening at the main dinner.

Here I had an opportunity to observe, at very close range, one of the most interesting spectacles of my whole experience. At the speakers’ table sat Senator O’Gorman, the toastmaster of the evening. At his right was William Jennings Bryan, the ever-hopeful leader of the Democrats, who was playing each of the important candidates against the other, in the hope of killing them all off, and securing the nomination himself. There sat also Underwood and Clark and Foss and Hearst and Marshall. Pomerene was there, as the representative of Governor Harmon of Ohio, and Judge Parker, happily forgetting his defeat. Each man knew that this moment was charged with fateful destiny. As each one made his speech, I could see the others taking his measure, and watching the crowd of diners to divine its reaction. Bryan, as the patriarch of the candidates, was to make the last address of the evening. It was to be his opportunity for a great oration that would restore to him the mastery of the party.

Wilson was the last speaker to precede him. When he arose, there was a brief applause of politeness, with an extra short outburst from the little handful of fifteen adherents. Every speaker who had gone before him had talked of party harmony. Wilson seized the opportunity of this text to clear up, with one masterly stroke, the dilemma of the “cocked hat” story. After a few happy remarks of acquiescence in the plea for harmony, Wilson turned to Mr. Bryan and, with a really Chesterfieldian gesture, said: “If any one has said anything about any of the other candidates, for which he is sorry, now is the time to apologize,” and made a smiling bow to the Commoner.

The audience broke into spontaneous and sincere applause at this stroke. They appreciated both its manliness and its cleverness; and they sat up with really expectant attention to hear the rest of his address.

Wilson rose to his opportunity. His speech revealed to these men a new power in the party. He made a splendid exposition of the issues before the country, and gave his vision of the remedies with beautiful eloquence and unanswerable logic. The audience progressed from rapt attention to enthusiasm.

All this time I was watching the face of Bryan. I have never seen a more interesting play of expression on the stage than the exhibition which he unconsciously gave. Here was the rising of a new political star, which he well knew meant the setting of his own. His face expressed in turn surprise, alarm, hesitation, doubt, gloom, despair. When Wilson took his seat amidst tremendous applause Bryan’s face was that of a man who had met his Waterloo. He rose like one who was dazed, and made a speech of abdication. He said that the time had come when a new man should be nominated, a man who was free from the asperities of the past, and that he was willing to march in the ranks of the party, and work with the rest of us to help on this victory, which he saw assured. He then started to sit down, but everyone applauded so vigorously, shouting “Go on! Go on!” that he became confused. For once, his political sagacity forsook him: he did not realize that he should stop. He regained his feet, and made a sad anti-climax by telling the diners stories of his observations in the Philippines and elsewhere. The evening was a Wilson triumph.

The effect upon Wilson’s fortune was instantaneous. The next morning our little headquarters was the Mecca of the politicians. Congressmen and Senators and members of the National Committee streamed to our rooms at the Willard. Some came to pledge us their support of Wilson; others to take the measure of his managers. Of the latter class, Senator Stone of Missouri was the most interesting. We saw then how he had earned his title, “Gum Shoe Bill.” He dropped in, so he said, for just a minute’s conversation, as Mrs. Stone was waiting for him in the lobby, where he had promised to rejoin her in a few minutes. He stayed for more than half an hour. He spent that time telling us a very humorous story, which would be worth retelling on its merits if it were printable. It dealt with several whimsical characters in a little town in the Ozarks, and he told it with all the rich embroidery of characterization and dialogue with which the best Southern story tellers elaborate their narratives. It was really a little masterpiece of the raconteur’s art, but it had no pertinence to our serious business. I soon became aware, however, that Stone himself had a serious purpose. All the while he was spinning his story out, to make it longer, his eyes were stealing from one face to another of his auditors, shrewdly appraising their reactions, studying each of them to learn what he could of their characters and foibles. When he finally drew the story to its close, sprung the “nub,” and got a round of laughter, he left, as I felt sure at the moment, with a pretty definite estimate of each of us in his head.

The extraordinary success of Wilson’s Jackson Day speech had its evil effects as well. It made other candidates realize that the man each of them had to beat was Wilson. Thus, all the politicians centred their attacks on him. They ceased their efforts to take delegates away from one another, and allotted to each candidate an undisputed field in the territory where he could help to make a showing. Their plan was to prevent Wilson from coming to the Convention with a large pledged vote.

In the meantime, we devoted our efforts to making Wilson popular among the Democratic press and masses, building up, throughout the country, a sentiment which made him the second choice in nearly every section where a favourite son got a preference with the delegates. Our greatest fear was that one of the two strongest candidates might yield his strength to the other in the hope of defeating Wilson.

Fortunately for us, the logic of the situation made our strategy also the best strategy for Bryan. He and his brother, with their keen political sense, were playing exactly the same game as we were. The result was that every candidate came to the Convention with his full strength, and a determination to use it.

We had other troubles. Repeatedly we faced financial difficulties, and many times the few men of means among us had to go down into their own pockets to make up the deficiency. I had to do so myself, and I leaned heavily on devoted friends of Wilson, like Cleveland H. Dodge, Charles R. Crane, and Abram I. Elkus. Then, too, there were personal differences. I shall never forget when Dudley Field Malone, with his high-powered temperament and his high-flown oratory, burst into my office, exclaiming, “I come with a message from a King to a King!”

“Come to earth, talk English,” I responded.

“Well,” he said, “the Governor has sent me to ask you to investigate the row between McCombs and Byron Newton. He wants you to settle the matter without his intervention.”

I sent for Newton first, to get his version of the trouble; and when he called, he was so unbridled in his language and so sweeping and illogical in his accusations against McCombs—he gave me an ultimatum that either he or McCombs must be instantly displaced—that I did not wait to hear the other side of the story, but promptly decided in McCombs’s favour. I concluded at once that Governor Wilson could not afford, at that critical moment, to expose himself to the charge of being ungrateful toward McCombs, who, notwithstanding his shortcomings, had rendered him invaluable services.

At last came the great days of the Convention. We went to Baltimore with less than half enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. Our hopes lay in the splendid impression that Wilson had made upon the country, and in the generalship we should exercise upon the floor of the Convention. The odds were all in favour of Champ Clark. He had better than a hundred more pledged delegates than Wilson, and the ground swell of the politicians in his favour. Still, we were not daunted.

There were elements in our favour. The Baltimore Sun, chiefly through the enthusiasm of Charles H. Grasty, created an atmosphere of Wilson optimism in the city that had an undoubted effect upon the delegates. And a determining influence with many delegates and the public at large was a wonderful editorial, written by Frank I. Cobb and published in the New York World at the psychological moment.

The supreme opportunity for all of us to use our best talents in behalf of Wilson came at the dramatic climax of the Convention when, on the third day and with the tenth ballot, Champ Clark received a majority vote of the delegates. Though two thirds were necessary to get the nomination, Clark’s adherents thought that the achievement of a majority marked the turn of the tide and the assurance of victory. They had sound historical warrant for this faith: for only once before had a Democratic candidate who received a majority of the votes failed to get the nomination.

If Clark’s managers had been able to capitalize that critical moment, their candidate might have gone to the White House eight months later.

When this tenth ballot was announced, the Convention greeted the Clark majority with wild enthusiasm. What his managers should have done was to have pressed this advantage to an immediate conclusion. A few more quick ballots taken under the emotion of that moment would doubtless have carried him over the line to victory. Instead, they wasted the opportunity, and the Missouri delegation organized a snake dance around the hall, and spent the next fifty-five minutes frittering away the precious enthusiasm of the Convention by cheering themselves hoarse in celebration of an assumed victory. They stimulated the joy of Clark’s adherents by bringing in his young daughter, wrapped in an American flag, and placing her beside the chairman. This pretty picture provoked a fresh outburst of triumphant cheering.

Those fifty-five minutes cost Clark the nomination. McCombs, Palmer, McAdoo, and the rest of us had a hurried consultation on the platform, not ten feet away from Ollie James, the impartial chairman, who did nothing to discourage the wild demonstration. We agreed on a plan of campaign, and, as lieutenants, all scurried about the hall, consulting with the leaders of the other delegates. We got the Underwood forces to agree to stand fast for their candidate on the next few ballots, and made the same arrangement with the Marshall and Foss delegates, pledging ourselves, in turn, to hold our people fast for Wilson.

In three quarters of an hour we had corralled our delegates safely out of the path of the Clark stampede. They sat immovable in the face of the frenzy of the crowd. When the Clark demonstration had subsided, and the next ballot was taken, the Clark managers had a rude awakening: the result was practically unchanged. Then, with a stroke of political genius, Mitchell Palmer arose, and claimed recognition from the Chair. Tall, massive, and extremely handsome, Palmer was at the height of youthful grace and vigour. The Chairman recognized him, and Palmer moved an immediate adjournment to the following morning. Before the Clark delegates grasped the meaning of this manoeuvre the motion had been put and carried. This respite gave Clark’s enemies a full day in which to make fresh alliances against him, and every one of the succeeding thirty-five ballots cut down his vote in the Convention.

The tide had turned. Wilson’s strength grew steadily, because as soon as a delegate realized that his own candidate’s cause was hopeless, his thoughts turned from his personal preference to the welfare of the party, and, in almost every case, he realized that Wilson was the one man to lead it on to victory. They realized, too, that a solemn duty rested on them. The Roosevelt defection from the Republican Party had ruined its chances, so that these Democratic delegates knew they were not merely nominating a candidate—they were actually electing a President.

After the nomination, the preliminary notification followed at Sea Girt a few days later. Here again was an opportunity to study human nature. Most of the defeated competitors for the nomination came and tendered their hearty congratulations. But Clark came like one who was attending the funeral of his hopes. He could not master his disappointment, nor conceal it. His depression lay upon the gathering like a cloud. It was so palpable that Tumulty saw that something must be done to lift it, else the proper spirit of the occasion would be destroyed. Tumulty then came to me, and suggested that Clark be taken for a ride. I approached Clark, and invited him to use my car. He accepted and asked if he might go anywhere he wished, and, of course, my reply was, “Certainly.” He then explained that his daughter was visiting in the neighbourhood, and he would like to see her. Filling the car with his friends, they drove away, with my son, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., at the wheel.

When my son came back, he had a broad smile on his countenance. “Where do you suppose,” he exclaimed, “Clark asked me to take him? His daughter is staying with George Harvey’s daughter!”

The “George Harvey” to whom my son referred was, of course, Mr. Wilson’s former supporter with whom he had recently had a much-advertised disagreement, and who is now Mr. Harding’s much-discussed Ambassador in London.

Here was a dilemma! I had already told Governor Wilson that Clark had gone to visit his daughter, and that she was staying with friends in the neighbourhood, and he had said: “I shall see that my daughters call on her.” Now, I had to tell him who “the friends in the neighbourhood” were. When I did so, he only smiled, and said: “That’s rather awkward, isn’t it?”