In brief, then, if the Presidency is a premiership, it is not the prerogative of the country to dismiss an official, except the one responsible for all, the President; but it is the prerogative of the President to dismiss any man who no longer satisfies him or who has failed to meet a certain standard; and the President has exercised his prerogative more frequently than the public is generally aware. The resignation of a member of the Cabinet - "resignation" is the official euphemism for dismissal - is always made sensational because the public pictures a "scene" between two strong and passionate men, perhaps excited charges of bad faith, of disloyalty, of overweening ambition the possibilities are endless to imagination; and no less sensational is it when officials are unable to work in harmony, when recrimination is bandied about, and for the good of the service one, and sometimes both, must be dismissed. Of the men below Cabinet rank who have been allowed quietly to retire because they did not measure up to expectations or created friction the public has heard nothing, because Mr. Wilson does not believe that mere administrative details are properly reviewable at the bar of public opinion.

7

Whether Mr. Wilson's theory of the responsibilities and duties of the Presidency is correct, whether the framers of the Constitution intended that the President should be a Premier rather than an Executive

permitted to plan but denied the power to execute, whether a system that satisfies the requirements of British politics can be safely applied to American, in the one case the Premier holding office at the pleasure of the people while in the other the President's tenure is fixed and he can be removed only by impeachment into these considerations it is unnecessary to enter. Their discussion would be proper in a polemical work dealing with opposing schools of government and constitutional interpretation, but they have no place in an attempt to interpret the character, motives and guiding principles of Woodrow Wilson. Two things, however, must be made clear to save the reader from confusion. It has already been said that in everything Mr. Wilson wrote as a student, when his discussion of the presidential powers was academic, and everything he has done since coming to the Presidency has been without wrench to the Constitution. He has made no attempt to stretch the Constitution to meet his own views; he has not transcended the constitutional boundaries surrounding the Executive, or invaded the province of the Legislature or the Judiciary as defined by the Constitution. This cannot be overemphasized.

And while frequent reference has been made to Mr. Wilson's belief that the British parliamentary system is superior to the American system of Congressional government, this must not lead the reader to think that Mr. Wilson saw a merit in monarchical institu

tions to the disparagement of republican. It was not the monarchical institutions of England that commended themselves to him, but the system of popular government; and above all, the system of integration by which one man, the Prime Minister, was made responsible for all that was done, instead of the disintegrating effect of numerous Congressional Committees that enabled every man to escape his just responsibility. Mr. Wilson had subjected the political systems of the two English-speaking peoples to the laboratory test. He had weighed, analyzed, measured, and the reaction had met the test of his theoretic formula. Long ago he had set up a model in his workshop, now he was to determine whether his ideas were sound or like the dream of the visionary inventor, theoretically sound but practically impossible. The man who at twenty-three saw the advantage of a system that created a Prime Minister as compared with the disadvantage of a system that elected a President only to make him silent and inactive, was now, fortified by wisdom and experience, to come to his opportunity to make the Presidency what his reason and his conscience taught him it ought to be.

CHAPTER IV

THE ENIGMA

1

MR. WILSON matured early. At an age when character is in the formative stage and minds are plastic, his character had become fixed and his mind had reached almost its full development. Two striking incidents in his career before he reached thirty prove this — the publication of "Congressional Government" and the abandonment of the law for pedagogy. It is not an uncommon thing for men to begin life in one profession and after a decent interval forsake it for another vocation, but such men have usually been unstable, without industry, naturally fond of change, or the creature of circumstance beyond their control. None of these reasons influenced Mr. Wilson. He had given proof of his industry and tenacity, the love of reckless adventure was not in him, no sudden crisis had come into his life. Deliberately and with a detached point of view very remarkable he was able to appraise himself; he knew his own powers and limitations, the thing he was best fitted for and that his heart was in. Other men have drifted into the law or medicine, found it disappointing or disheartening, but, too timid to begin

anew, have plugged along to failure. Mr. Wilson had the courage to confess his mistake and to make a new start.

"Congressional Government", to any one seeking to understand and interpret Woodrow Wilson, will repay careful reading. It is seldom that a youth of twenty-three is the author of a work that lives and becomes a classic, which in itself is sufficient to stamp him as a man of whom much may be expected, but the book is of still greater interest. Neither in style nor treatment does it betray youth, its inexperience, passions or prejudices. There is about it the sure touch of the philosophical observer, who having reasoned carefully and weighed dispassionately has reached the certain ground of conviction. The confidence Mr. Wilson had in his youth grew and strengthened with his years. The characters of few public men have so often been summed up in a single word, to no other public man perhaps have so many men of diverse intellects applied the same word as a characterization. Mr. Wilson's friends have said with an air of regret, as if recognizing an immedicable weakness, as his opponents have said with an air of finality, that he is too "self-centered." What they mean is that he was always sure of himself, that in him there were no doubts or hesitations such as mark the ordinary man, nor did he carefully balance with timidity the danger of action against the safety of compromise. To a friend who congratulated him on his judgment having been vin