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 dear doctor, away off in Princeton, never even heard of my
opposition to him, although in my conceit I thought the state reverberated
with the report of my unqualified and bitter opposition to him. In my poor
vanity I thought that perhaps what I had said in my speech of opposition
to him had reached the cloisters of Princeton. As a matter of fact, he
never heard about me or my speech, and afterward in the years of our
association he "joshed" me about my opposition to him and would often make
me very uncomfortable by recounting to his friends at the White House how
even his own secretary had opposed him when his name was first under
consideration for the United States senatorship in New Jersey.
To me was given the honour of nominating at a joint session of the Senate
and House Assembly the candidate opposed to Woodrow Wilson for the Senate,
the Honourable Edwin E. Stevens. I recall the comparison I made between
the claims of Colonel Stevens, the strict party man, and those of Woodrow
Wilson, the Princeton professor. The speech nominating Woodrow Wilson at
the joint session of the Legislature was the shortest on record. It was
delivered by a big generous fellow, John Baader, one of the Smith-Nugent
men from Essex County. When Essex County was called, he slowly rose to his
feet and almost shamefacedly addressing the Speaker of the House, said,
tremulously: "I nominate for the United States Senate Woodrow Wilson, of
Princeton," and then, amid silence, sat down. No applause greeted the name
of the man he nominated. It seemed as if the college professor had no
friends in the Legislature except the man who had put his name forward for
the nomination.
Colonel Stevens won the honorary nomination and Woodrow Wilson was
defeated. Colonel Harvey, disgruntled but not discouraged, packed up his
kit and left on the next train for New York.