John Passos - Mr. Wilson's War

It was his manner of speaking more than what he said, his air of cool determination, the flash of the gray eyes behind his noseglasses. Stockton Axson, the professor’s brotherinlaw listening from the wings, saw one wardheeler poke another with his elbow: “God, look at the man’s jaw,” he said. The smalltime lawyers and partyworkers and local officeholders who made up the delegations, sodden and blearyeyed from a night of wrangling, were carried away. “A leader at last. The Big Fellow was right,” men whispered hoarsely in each others’ ears. “Boss Smith knew what he was doing.” They cheered at every pause in Wilson’s short speech of acceptance. “Go on, go on,” they shouted.

Wilson cast his eyes up at the flag above the platform and delivered himself of a carefully prepared peroration: “When I think of the flags our ships carry, the only touch of color about them, the only thing that moves as if it had a settled spirit — in their solid structure — it seems to me I see alternate strips of parchment on which are written the rights of liberty and justice and strips of blood spilled to vindicate these rights, and then — in the corner — a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim which stands for these great things.”

Young Joe Tumulty who had been bitterly opposed to the nomination had wormed his way from the back of the hall and was standing beside the band in front of the speakers’ stand. He used to tell how the men around him had tears streaming down their faces. He himself fell like Saul on the road to Damascus. An old progressive from Atlantic City named John Crandall was trying to fight off the spell. The drum was beating. Men were cheering at the top of their lungs. Finally he started wildly waving his hat and cane. “I’m sixty-five years old and still a damned fool,” he yelled.

Four days later when Kerney went over to Prospect with Smith and James R. Nugent, the conservative city counsel of Newark, to plan the campaign, he noted that the boss seemed awed by the quiet sweep of the green lawns, the flowerbeds, the airy stateliness of the big house. “Jim,” he whispered to Kerney, “can you imagine anybody being damn fool enough to give this up for the heartaches of politics?”

Jim Kerney who was thick with the reform element had been as opposed as Tumulty to Wilson’s nomination. When the professor came out to usher them into his booklined study Smith introduced Kerney as a troublesome progressive editor. Wilson shook hands warmly and said something about having Irish blood himself in his veins. Right away they were all bits of the old sod together.

“The manner in which he grasped every suggestion” as to how to win over the local Mercer County partyleaders “was a revelation,” wrote Kerney admiringly. At the same time “he had his own notions about things … He did not favor the handshaking, house to house, Roosevelt style of whirlwind campaign and was against all day tours … One big evening speech in each county was his idea of the way of conducting the fight.”

It fell to Nugent to arrange the practical details. He confided in Kerney that the professor was devilish hard to manage. It was Nugent who enlisted the services of irrepressible young Joe Tumulty who had already made a name for himself as an orator during his three years in the state legislature. Tumulty’s job was to keep the candidate in touch with the rank and file. They had been horrified to discover how ignorant Professor Wilson was of local issues.

The only newspaper he read was Oswald Garrison Villard’s New York Evening Post. According to Kerney they told off a man named St. John to slant articles in the Evening Post especially for the political education of Woodrow Wilson.

The Democratic leaders held their breath when the professor stepped out to open the campaign before a rough and tumble audience in St. Peter’s Hall in Jersey City. His first story fell flat, he fumbled and hesitated. Then all at once he caught the feel of his hearers. Taking advantage of his bad beginning he explained, in a simple man to man tone, that up to then he had asked audiences to accept ideas and principles … “and now I find myself in the novel position of asking you to vote for me for Governor of New Jersey.”

Why shouldn’t he be embarrassed?

He went on to outline his principles of independence from political and financial interests in a rather general way, but in such a sincere and personal tone that the whole hall was captivated. “Something new in stump speeches” commented the Trenton True American.

The Republicans were running a reform campaign. Their aspirant for governor was a good man. On the whole the New Jersey reformers had come more from among the Republicans than from the tightly ruled Democratic organizations. Republican progressivism was greatly stimulated in 1906 when, during a furious campaign, La Follette cut a tornado path across the state. He made seventeen speeches in six days. “If in this eastern country,” announced the apostle of the Wisconsin Idea, “where the money power is strongest, I could do something towards bringing down the lightning, it would be more effective than anything I could do.”

One of the reasons La Follette came into the state was that his friend and admirer, the prince of muckrakers Lincoln Steffens, had written up the reform movement in Jersey City in the magazines.

Reform in Jersey City was the work of an Irishman named Mark Fagan. By profession an undertaker he had been raised in the machine. As a youth he read Henry George and was excommunicated by the Church for joining the Anti-Poverty League. He was a warmhearted simple sort of man with a great deal of the common touch. When he was elected mayor he tried “to make Jersey City a pleasant place to live in.” He even said, “I’d like to make it pretty.”

His corporation counsel and general mentor was a tall shambling lawyer, so obsessed with the character of Abraham Lincoln that his friends claimed he was getting to look like him, named George L. Record. Record came from Maine. He had worked his way through Bates on jobs in a shoefactory and as carpenter’s helper and had come to the New York area to study law and make his fortune. Although originally a Democrat he was attracted by the progressive ideas of the Jersey Republicans. He and Fagan between them founded the Equal Taxation League which worked to cut the excessive tax reductions enjoyed by the railroads and utilities which threw the support of municipal government on the small home owners.

Record had little success when he tried to run for office himself, but his influence was great as a lobbyist for progressive measures. He had put through a senatorial primary law. Now he was agitating for a corrupt practices act, for the sort of control of corporations which Hughes had put through in New York, for employers’ liability and other measures out of the progressive textbook as set forth in Oregon and Wisconsin. Record’s word carried great weight with reform elements in both parties. When he described Professor Wilson’s speeches as “glittering generalities beautifully phrased, but having nothing to do with the political campaign in New Jersey,” Wilson’s backers were dismayed. Record challenged Professor Wilson to debate the issues.

To the consternation of the old pros running the Democratic campaign, who considered George Record a radical too dangerous even to speak to, Wilson accepted. The campaign committee pointed out that the professor was falling into a trap. Wilson announced, with the greatest air of innocence, that he still would be glad to debate with Mr. Record if the Republican committee would designate him as their spokesman. The Republican committee, who thought of Record as a son of the wild jackass, would do no such thing. In terms of sweet reasonableness Wilson suggested an exchange of letters.