prepare themselves for the change and not to be caught like the foolish virgins unprepared for the event.

There was something spectacular about the progress of the tariff bill through Congress. A steady campaign was waged throughout the nation for funds to maintain a lobby and to create sentiment that might deter the work of the Representatives and Senators. The sugar interests made a "burning appeal" to the nation. The woolen interests, that had enjoyed protection for so long, were panic-stricken and saw national disaster ahead if wool should be put on the free list. Cotton manufacturers felt the cold wind of ingratitude for the business they had built up, became disgusted with politics, and returned home when the tariff knife cut away a part of their protection. The "voice of reason" was heard in the land "protesting against undue haste." The alarmist saw the Democratic party rushing to its doom and carrying in its wake disaster to the whole country. In the meantime a conference of the two wings of the Republican party was held for the purpose of getting together, although it was on the tariff that the party split.

It soon became quite evident that Big Business, instead of preparing for the inevitable change, was making ready to fight it. And that "whispering system," the lobby, that the President had anathematized during the campaign, was quietly and very determinedly at work to circumvent every important reduc

tion of the tariff. Moreover, in New Jersey, his own state, the legislature, in its efforts to control the trusts, was handicapped at every step.

Mr. Wilson had declared before his inauguration that he meant to see business set free and the government dissolved from its co-partnership with monopoly. Moreover, he declared that he would fight for this "new freedom," and he added that he really liked a fight when it became necessary to fight.

"There is only one canon of Americanism," he said soon after Congress convened, "and the real, constant difficulty of American politics is to bring it back so that it will square with the standards set up at the first when the Revolution was fought out and an independent nation was established in America. We established an independent nation in order that men might enjoy a new kind of happiness and a new kind of dignity; that kind which a man has when he respects every other man's and woman's individuality as he respects his own; when he is not willing to draw distinctions between classes, when he is not willing to shut the door of privilege in the face of any one."

But wherever he turned, that "invisible government" was deliberately at work, and its chief executive, the

politician boss, that self-appointed trustee, was busy in the national capital as well as in the state capitals to bar the "door of privilege" and destroy the first canon of Americanism. The President's attack on the political boss was well planned. The opening assault was made in his own state, where he declared in very strong terms that that "whispering system" must vacate and give democracy a chance.

"The people of this country and of this State are going to have what they know they ought to have by one process or another," he said. "I pray that it may not be a wrong process. I do not myself believe that dangerous things will happen. But I want to warn these men (the bosses) not too long to show the people of this country that justice cannot be got by the ordinary processes of law. I warn them to stand out of the sovereign way.

"I have traveled from one end of this country to the other. I have looked into the faces of many audiences. I have never seen any symptoms that men were going to kick over the traces of the laws they have made, but I have seen a great majesty seated upon their countenances, and infinite patience. Thus they are sitting now."

Then he issued a warning for all men to heed:

"This is the test; this is the trial; this is the ultimate seat of judgment, and if these men will not serve the people, they will be swept away like chaff before the wind. Other men more honest, more active, more wholesome, with the freshness of a new age upon them, with eyes that see the country as it is-men who are cool and thoughtful and determined-will go to the front and lead the people to the day of victory.

"Then America will be crowned with a new wreath of self-revelation and of self-discovery, and these creatures will have disappeared like the dust in the wheels of the chariot of God. It is this hope, it is this confidence that keeps the President of the United States alive. It is this confidence that makes it good to come back to New Jersey and fight for the old cause."

In this connection he declared also that he was the President of the people of the United States. "I am not the servant of the Democratic party," he said. "I am the servant of the people, acting through the Democratic party, which has now undertaken some of the most solemn obligations that a party ever undertook, for it has stepped forward at a moment of universal disappointment and said, 'We pledge you our

honor as men and as patriots that you shall not be disappointed again." "

He knew that the same "whispering system" was at work in the national capital. There were men without any visible occupation who lived well in Washington hotels and professed to have political influence at their disposal. Moreover, there were agents who supplied the press with advertisements and newspaper articles. Groups of people were organized in many states whose business it was to flood the Representatives and Senators with letters from "down home," with the purpose of frightening timid members of Congress and thus defeating the Administration's tariff plans. The President's New Jersey speeches created a little excitement. But when he returned to Washington, he had only to watch the same agencies at work.

The month of May was nearly gone. Congress had been in session about six weeks, and the tariff bills, which were ready to be considered by the House at the opening session, had made considerable progress. However, obstruction after obstruction was placed in the way of the Members. The President had already declared that the people of this country are going to have, by one process or another, what they know they ought to have. Therefore, he warned the bosses "to stand out of the sovereign way." And instead of heeding this warning, they seemed to be so strongly intrenched that they dared to defy the Administration.