newly elected President was right, or this Calvinist might have some blue laws up his sleeve which he expected to enforce later. The press of the country was somewhat severe in its criticism of these speeches, and for several days the business of the country seemed to be very much alarmed. It was even reported that his utterances were about to produce a panic. One may reread the above addresses today and smile at the uneasy state produced by such utterances. However, the panicky feeling was so perceptible that Mr. Wilson's secretary felt called upon to issue the following statement:

"Attempts are being made to make an issue of Governor Wilson's speech at Chicago. This is nothing less than amusing. Governor Wilson's attitude on business and its relations to government, as expressed in his several speeches since election, is, as any well informed person in the country would testify, exactly the same as his attitude before his nomination and before his election.

"Every word that Governor Wilson has uttered is in complete harmony with the principles to which he has strictly adhered throughout his public career. If there is any surprise in this attitude, it can be manifested only by those who fail to realize that the country has elected to the Presidency an honest and fearless man who means exactly what he says."

The panic existed only in the newspapers of the

country. But it was discovered that Big Business was was preparing to declare war on the new administration. That was natural. It was what might have been expected. However, as the date for the inauguration approached, Governor Wilson's speeches became less specific, and more editorial lines were devoted to his character and integrity. His policies were clearly outlined. He had settled convictions on the tariff, on currency reform, and on anti-trust legislation. Beyond this, he spoke in general terms, and he came up to the fourth of March with a determination to correct these three evils.

The agitation period had passed, and the constructive period had begun. His speech, accepting the nomination, gave his analysis of conditions as they existed and his remedies for righting the wrongs from which the people suffered, and within less than two years after the assembling of his first Congress, these remedies had been written into law. Seldom in political history has the nation witnessed such a conjunction of promise and performance. To study what he promised to do, what he did do, and how he did it, constitutes a complete exposition of the processes of the Executive and Legislative Departments of government in America; consequently, aside from the significance of the laws themselves, this period of President Wilson's administration will always be of engrossing interest to students of history.

CHAPTER III

INAUGURATING THE NEW REGIMÉ

A great President is made in the White House. No previous training is so complete, no knowledge is so comprehensive, and no experience has so functioned under the pressure of that peculiar responsibility as to enable even those gifted with a sense of prophecy to foretell with any degree of certainty the successes or failures of a new Executive. The nation had been deeply stirred by the great campaign which had elevated Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency, and after the heat of the contest and after the people had had the opportunity to take a calm view of the situation, men everywhere were asking this one question: What kind of President would be born in the White House on March 4, 1913?

The Democratic party had been a protesting body for twenty years-protesting against the policies of the Republican party, which had been the official policies of the nation. It had formed the protesting habit, which seemed to be its chief function and its main excuse for existing. But its protests had, at last, become the adopted policies of the nation; and, in a period of apparent national prosperity, this significant trans

formation had taken place. It was quite evident, therefore, that a new era was at hand, but its full meaning was distressingly obscure, and a feeling of pessimism pervaded the country where, heretofore, special privilege, secure under the protection of the government, was so buoyant and optimistic. What did the change mean? Was the judgment day at hand?

It was the fourth of March, 1913, that the business of America dreaded. But the day was at hand. An immense throng had gathered around the Capitol to see the old party, that had been in continuous power since the overthrow of slavery (with the exception of two short intervals), turn the government over to the party that had had so little voice in the government of the nation for a half century. But what did it all mean?

The new-found leader took the oath to support the Constitution, and turning to the great out-of-doors and speaking to the people of the United States, he declared that he would answer the question "that is uppermost in our minds today."

"There has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into

the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds today. That is the question I am going to try to answer, if I may, in order to interpret the occasion.

"It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the nation now seeks to use the Democratic party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view. Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have latterly looked critically upon them with fresh awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life.

"We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material