sistently lived up to his constitutional convictions. No President of recent times had initiated more formidable programmes of legislation, and no President had been more successful in bending Congress to his will. It is hardly too much to say that in the years 1901-9 the doctrine of personal rule in the United States took on a colour it had not assumed since the days of Lincoln-and the circumstances of the Civil War were too abnormal to provide any valid precedent for the conduct of government in an ordinary Presidential

term.

was

With Mr. Taft's succession to office in 1909 the balance of power had shifted. Mr. Roosevelt had been swept forward by the impulse of an impetuous radicalism. Mr. Taft cautious, constitutional, and conservative, and temperamentally incapable of the personal dominance that his predecessor had so effectually exerted. Under his régime Congress reasserted itself. In the Lower House insurgent Republicans made common cause with the Democrats in divesting the Speaker of his traditional power to determine the course of legislation by selecting from the intractable mass of Bills before the House the chosen few to which priority of discussion might give an opportunity of passage into law. That prerogative was transferred to the Committee on Rules, which was better qualified than any single official could be to reflect the desires of the rank and file of the House.

How was Mr. Wilson likely to stand with Congress? In both Houses he could command

a substantial Democratic majority, but the Democratic Party was by no means homogeneous, and the President's independence of the machine was calculated to modify rather than consolidate his influence. There was room for some initial doubt, therefore, as to his power, as well as his desire, for effective personal leadership. As to the latter quality, however, conjecture had solid ground to build on. No man can go through the ordeal of a Presidential election without exposing the whole of his past career to the critical scrutiny of the world; and in the four months preceding the November polling the electorate had learned enough of the President of Princeton and the Governor of New Jersey to justify the conviction that if the Democratic candidate reached the White House he would be content with the rôle neither of constitutional figurehead nor of automatic registrar of the decisions of Congress. His administration promised, in short, to be shaped on the Jackson-Lincoln-Roosevelt model, not the Buchanan-Taft.

Opinion both in the legislature and in the country was disposed to approve that interpretation of the Presidential function. In Congress Mr. Wilson was backed by a safe majority, and if many Democrats were inclined to be conservative, many of the opposition were inclined to be radical. The Taft-Roosevelt controversy, indeed, had left the Republicans temporarily impotent. The antagonism between the advanced and reactionary wings of the party had crystallized in 1911 in the formation of the National Progressive

Republican League, of which Senator La Follette, of Wisconsin, was the leading spirit. The success of the Progressives at the polls-Roosevelt totalled over seven hundred thousand more votes than Taft -indicated a revolt, of which Mr. Wilson was in a position to take full advantage, against the old party alignments and the traditions of the political machine. In one of his campaign speeches the Democratic candidate had suggested that "the burden that is upon the heart of every conscientious public man is the burden of the thought that perhaps he does not sufficiently comprehend the national life." I His election to the Presidency gave the speaker an opportunity such as few of his predecessors enjoyed of proving the quality of his own comprehension.

He had behind him a political following that years of unbroken opposition had made opportunist and uncertain of its principles and ideals. It lay with him to weld it into a self-conscious and purposive entity. He had around him and before him a commonwealth of citizens in swift but blind transition from old political allegiances to a new and still undiscerned concentration of forces. The impulse to revolt was stronger than the capacity to construct. Domination by party machines and exploitation at the hands of monopolies and trusts had stung a new and challenging individualism into activity. Men remembered afresh the ideals of those forerunners who had "brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the

The New Freedom, chap v.

proposition that all men are created equal and recognizing how far economic slavery had replaced that liberty, and plutocracy and privilege destroyed that heritage of equality, they were ready for any leadership that could carry them on to the re-establishment of the old ideals.

Democracy demanded the right to reassert itself. The electorate claimed to choose its representatives, not merely to endorse the decisions of the caucus of machine-riggers that controlled the destinies of nine candidates out of ten. The institution of the direct primary in State and national politics, the movement for the indication of "Presidential preference" by the individual voter, and the growing approval of the principle of the initiative, referendum, and recall in many States, were all evidences of the same universal resolve for the recovery of popular control over administration.

But the movement was no more than inchoate. The forces opposed to it-financial interests and party bosses were powerful. Strong and decisive leadership was needed before all things. In many respects Mr. Roosevelt was well qualified for the rôle of leader. He had vision, energy, and a wholesome contempt for tradition. But he was handicapped by his egoism and by the almost insuperable difficulty of converting an established party, and a party in power, to a policy of inno

Initiative: Right of a small percentage of the electorate (usually 10 per cent.) to submit a Bill to the legislature and compel its consideration. Referendum: Right of the electorate to insist on the submission of new legislation to a popular vote. Recall Right of petition for the removal of unsatisfactory public servants.

vation and radical reform. He made the attempt, and wrecked his party. For the Democrats the task was easier. They were in enjoyment of the freedom of opposition. The main permanent plank in their platform, tariff reduction, was in line with the new movement of thought. They were sufficiently disintegrated to welcome the emergence of a new constructive new constructive programme. Standing as a Democrat Mr. Wilson had a unique opportunity. If he could rise to the demands of a supreme occasion there lay before him, not a successful party candidature but true national leadership.

It was mainly in the field of domestic politics that leadership was called for. Abroad America had few commitments and only one anxiety. Some Democrats, it is true, were still exercised over the acquisition by a Federal State of a colonial empire, but the dominions were of small importance, and raised no serious administrative problems. The Filipinos were being gradually trained for self-government and ultimate independence; Porto Rico, another fruit of the Spanish-American war, was tranquil; the Panama differences with Colombia were regarded as closed. In another category Cuba, her independence restored four years earlier after a period of American occupation, was maintaining peace and achieving prosperity. San Domingo was under American administration, but occupation by a handful of marines was sufficient to guarantee the good conduct of that inconsiderable republic. In one quarter only did trouble threaten. Since the