Republican by 12 to 9; Assembly, Democratic by 42 to 18.

The new Governor's principles were early put to the test. The Democratic boss, James Smith, had represented New Jersey in the Senate of the United States, and meant to represent it again whenever there was a prospect of a Democratic majority in the two houses of the State Legislature, with whom the actual election to the Senate at Washington rested. Of that Mr. Wilson was well aware, and having his own opinion of the boss's political record, he had made it a condition of his acceptance of the candidature for the Governorship that Mr. Smith should not run on the same ticket as candidate for the Senate. Mr. Smith agreed, and at the primary at which the party candidates for the various offices were appointed the popular choice of the Democrats for the Senatorship fell on one James E. Martine. Mr. Martine having thus become the official party nominee, it was certain that if the forthcoming elections should yield a Democratic majority in the State Legislature the State Legislature would send Mr. Martine to Washington.

The result of the poll did, as has been seen, yield a joint Democratic majority of twenty-one in the two houses, owing largely to the advantage accruing to Democratic candidates from association on the same ticket with so strong a nominee for the Governorship as Dr. Wilson. When this became clear Mr. James Smith's ideas on the Senatorship rapidly changed. His health, which he had advanced as a guarantee of his good faith

when he assured Mr. Wilson he was not a candidate for Washington, suddenly improved. He decided, in short, that when the Legislature went through the formality of electing a United States Senator the Democratic majority should vote, not for Martine, the choice of the people, but for Smith, the choice of Smith. Whatever term may be applicable to sharp practice of this kind, the manœuvre was not definitely unconstitutional, and there seemed no reason to suppose that a party boss of the power of ex-Senator Smith would find it difficult to enforce his will.

A reason, however, there was, incarnated in the resolute personality of the new Governor. When the would-be Senator first mentioned his intention to Dr. Wilson the latter was amazed at the proposal, and before dismissing the subject, as he quickly did, entered an emphatic protest against so flagrant a disregard of the popular decision. Mr. Smith, none the less, proceeded with his candidature. Public opinion was sharply divided, less on the ethics of the proceeding than on the power of the machine to carry its man through, and all sections looked to the Governor for a lead. Dr. Wilson gave Smith to understand that unless a written assurance of his withdrawal was forthcoming within forty-eight hours he would denounce him publicly. The hour fixed brought no message, and the next day's papers contained a plain and emphatic statement of the Governor's views on the Senatorship question. Nor did he stop at a newspaper statement. Before the Legislature met he had addressed crowded public meet

ings in the chief cities of the State, insisting, not on the personal qualifications of Martine against Smith, but on the right of the people to have its decision carried out. When the Houses voted Martine was sent to Washington; Smith was beaten out of the field. It is noteworthy that where the average Governor in such a case would have confined himself to caucusing with the legislators Mr. Wilson went direct to the people. His action was in complete con

sonance with the doctrine he enunciated in the course of this particular campaign : "Absolute good faith in dealing with the people, an unhesitating fidelity to every principle avowed, is the highest law of political morality under a constitutional government.'

This initial and signal and signal victory over the political machine was a fitting prelude to an administration that stamped the public life of New Jersey with the personality of its Governor to a degree unprecedented in its history. The traditional severance between executive and legislative functions in the Constitution both of the Union and of the several States carries with it the inherent defect of leaving the legislature in either case comparatively leaderless. The President and his Ministers cannot sit in Congress; the Governor cannot sit in the State Legislature. Consequently the man supremely responsible for administering the law, and therefore supremely alive to the need for legislative changes and reforms, has no direct means of laying his view before the legislative body except

through the ineffective medium of an occasional personal message, usually transmitted in writing. Constructive leadership under such conditions is almost-though not, as Mr. Wilson and a few other Governors have shown, entirely-impossible. Congress at Washington and the Legislatures in the State capitals tend alike to be controlled by a party caucus and dominated by groups representing various material interests, and directly susceptible to the vigorous lobbying of individuals and corporations intent on securing some profitable concession or effecting the defeat of regulative and restrictive legislation.

Of these dangers Mr. Wilson was acutely conscious. As far back as 1897, when he was still a Princeton professor, he had expressed his conviction in an address to the Virginia State Bar Association that "successful Governments have never been conducted safely in the midst of complex and critical affairs, except when guided by those who were responsible for carrying out and bringing to an issue the measures they proposed; and the separation of the right to plan from the duty to execute has always led to blundering and inefficiency." That conviction did not grow weaker as the speaker's experience matured, and when he found himself Governor of a State numbering two and a half million citizens he found the problem confronting him in a very concrete form. Since a revolutionary recasting of the State Constitution was not to be considered, it remained to make the best of the system as it stood.

In that purpose the Governor's one asset

was his own force of character and indifference to tradition. To these qualities was soon added his victory in the matter of the Senatorship, a success that was manifestly the earnest of further success. While he conceived himself, and not a political boss, to be the rightful leader of his party in the State, he regarded himself in almost equal degree as the representative of the whole electorate-as in his executive capacity he constitutionally wasand he had no intention of allowing party antagonisms to militate against either administrative or legislative efficiency. By 1910 the Progressive, or radical, section of the Republican Party was making itself felt throughout the Union, and Governor Wilson early scandalized the more hidebound of his supporters by taking counsel with the leaders of the New Jersey Progressives, whose support he had strong hope of enlisting for his programme of social reform.

What that programme was had been stated in the Governor's speech of acceptance. Its chief heads may profitably be recalled, for comparison with the actual legislative record registered during Mr. Wilson's first year of office. They concerned reorganization and economy in administration ; the equalization of taxation; the control of corporations; employers' liability; corrupt practices at elections; and conservation. Redemption of the pledges that constituted this formidable platform began early in the session of 1911, with a measure introducing the system of the direct primary (i.e. a direct popular vote as opposed to the traditional series of packed delegations and