force of character, that readiness of resource, that clearness of vision, that grasp of intellect, that courage of conviction, that earnestness of purpose, and that instinct and capacity for leadership which are the eight horses that draw the triumphal chariot of every leader and ruler of free men."

It was the bitter complaint of members of Congress and their satellite politicians, and to some extent it was shared by the country, that the new President was a more masterful and obstinate man than any of his predecessors, with perhaps the exception of Jackson, whose historical reputation they accepted without investigation and with whom he was often compared; but the comparison with Lincoln is more appropriate, as we shall see, although there could not be two men, in many things, more unlike. Lincoln was a man of infinite patience, of consummate political shrewdness, of unyielding tenacity; he touched emotion with the magic harp of speech; he made war in a holy cause and brought an unwilling people to welcome sacrifice in the name of humanity. The parallel could not be the more exact.

In some way which no one could explain but every one had to acknowledge, Mr. Wilson had seized power so completely that his own party in Congress had become merely a council to register his decrees, and the opposition performed no other function but that of muttering in futile rage. It was neither overwhelming ambition nor the selfish vanity of power that made

Mr. Wilson play this part. He brought to the Presidency new ideas and new methods; the Presidency was to cease to be merely a superintendency and to become a premiership. It is amusing now as we look back, and it will afford much material for the future historian, that a great parliamentary revolution was in progress, and no one suspected it, and only one man knew it. A system that had come into existence by chance rather than design, that Congress after Congress had perpetuated, Mr. Wilson had determined to destroy, did begin to destroy from the first day he entered the White House, had struck at its foundation in the early months of his power, and soon was to see it crumble and leveled in the dust. More than one President had tried to do and failed what Mr. Wilson succeeded in accomplishing. Congress, jealous of its usurped powers and unwilling to yield them, resisted any attempt on the part of the President to regain his stolen inheritance, and the struggle ended either in the presidential surrender or a break between the President and his party in Congress, which was the fate of Mr. Cleveland, also a masterful man. Lincoln narrowly escaped the same fate. It was the same clash between a President determined to assert leadership and a Congress no less determined to keep the President subordinate. "This was an able, energetic, and truly patriotic Congress," says one of Lincoln's biographers, "and must not be despised for its reluctance to be guided by Lincoln. But it was reluctant."

Congress went its way unsuspecting, and Mr. Wilson worked. Like the Congress of Lincoln's day "they grumbled and sneered"; just as their predecessors complained that before they could legislate they had to "ascertain the Royal pleasure", so now they denounced the man who had made them "rubber stamps", who called no party leaders in conference, who showed no fear of Congress and treated it with little deference, but who sent his measures down to Congress with the calm assurance they would be enacted into laws. Every other President coming into office has been swamped with office seekers, with senators and representatives acting as office brokers for their constituents; and Presidents have not considered that it lowered their dignity to haggle over offices in return for promises of legislative support, while members of Congress have considered it part of their power to remind the President that unless they were given the offices they sought for their clients he might expect opposition when he submitted his legislative program for action.

Mr. Wilson gave little of his time to office brokerage. He had avowed himself a party man; statesmanship, he had recorded, was the accomplishment of party objects; but his imagination was too vivid and his principles were too firmly established to resort to the cheap trick of buying strength by the sale of offices. The Democratic party was in power and Democrats were naturally to be given preferment, but the days of Walpole were gone.

CHAPTER V

A PLEDGE TO HUMANITY

1

THE policies of an administration are broadly foreshadowed by the "platform" adopted at the nominating convention on which the candidate for the Presidency stands; the candidate's speech of acceptance in reply to the formal notification of the committee appointed to inform him of his nomination; and his first official act as President, the announcement of the members of his Cabinet.

A political platform has no legal validity; it has neither the force of statute nor the moral obligation imposed upon an individual by his personal promise. It is the compromise of many conflicting elements, some of them governed by principle and others yielding to expediency, who are relieved from personal responsibility because their identity is lost in the mass. But a political platform is always to be regarded as the expression of benevolent intention, of what the representatives of the people would like to do, and perhaps intend to do if under the heat of emotion their enthusiasm has not carried them too far; and it perhaps more nearly typifies than any other document the be

lief men have at the moment of the things their fellow men are thinking, their desires and unsatisfied longings ; and puts in concrete form so as to make the strongest appeal the crude ideas of the multitude.

The Democratic platform of 1912 was in harmony with the new thoughts that were moving men and the aspirations that made them see in a purified politics a regenerative force. The tariff, according to Democratic belief, had been perverted from its original purpose of providing for the necessary support of the government and been made an instrument of oppression and the means of intrenching monopoly, therefore it was natural for the convention to demand that taxes should be sufficient only for "the necessities of government honestly and economically administered"; that the trusts and their beneficiaries should be vigorously denounced; that every movement in the direction of social reform, equality and justice, such as the income tax, the election of senators by the people, the publicity of campaign contributions, the efficient control of railways, the improvement of agriculture and other measures for the general benefit should be strongly approved.

The platform of this year is noteworthy as showing the current of thought, how much men were thinking only of the things close to them, the things that were to bring sweetness to life and help to lift the burden

the severity of taxation, the high cost of living, the grasp of monopoly; and how little their thoughts turned to things remote from them: international rela