The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-03-30
JOS. 7. 1UMULTY
IS LIVE WIRE.
Private Secretary to President Wilson
is a Born Fighter and He
Knows How to Keep
Busy.
us MY OTHER SELF"
Was Member Of New Jersey Lesisla-
ture and While There Attract
ed Attention Of New
President.
UNITED Press Special Service.

UNITED Press Special Service1
WASHINGTON, D. c., March 20
Everybody outside New Jersey was
surprised when President Wilson nam
ed Joseph P. Tumulty to be his priv
ate secretary at the white house; but
everybody in New Jersey would have
been surprised if he had named any
body else.
Jerseyites who had been watching
Tumulty knew his appointment was a
foregone conclusion-for Tumulty, for
two years, had been the mainstay.
prop, comforter, counselor and captain
Of the Wilson gubernatorial admins
tration. The kind of fellow Tumulty
Is (accent on the first syllable, pro
nounced as If 1t were "Tumm') is
best shown by what the president
himself says of him:
"Tumulty Is my other self"
For three years before he became
governor, Wilson had had his eye on
Tumulty. who was elected to the
house Of assembly for his fourth term
when Wilson was elected governor In
1910. Although supposed to be col
lege "recluse,'' Wilson had been
studying conditions In New Jersey
closely. He had seen young Tumulty,
who went to the legislature when he
was twenty-eight, stand on the floor
of the house and rave about the cor
rupt political conditions which he was
powerless to remedy but which he
never hesitated to condemn. Tumulty
had been preaching all the reforms
which Wilson later made real as gov
ernor, SO Wilson grabbed him out of
the house and put him to work wiz.
the title of secretary and the duties
OF assistant chief executive and gen
eral political campaign manager.
It was Tumulty who got the infor-
nation that formed the basis for
Wilson's reform program in New Jer-
4 sey. 1t was Tumulty who stood at
/ Wilson's shoulder with his mouth
close to his chiefs ear when the presi-
dency business started, and it was
Tumulty whom Wilson leaned on more
heavily and found absolutely trust
worthy and wise when he ran for the
4 democratic nomination, when he ran
1 for election, when he steered the New
Jersey legislature through its last
session. That's the reason he brought
Tumulty to Washington, to help him
through the bigger job at the white
house.
Tumulty is natural born fighter.
He is Irish through and through. He
loves scrap. and he eats, drinks and
sleeps politics. Being born in tene.
ment ward in Jersey City, growing
up where he had to establish his po-
sition by his fists, knowing the grind
of poverty-his father was an iron
Z moulder-Tumulty naturally became
democrat, and later, as he began to
form definite ideas Of government, he
became an extreme radical. He knew
4 the trials, heartaches and discourage
ments of the man who is down and
has nothing to pull him up but his
own efforts because he had to pull
himself up. Since he got near the
/ top he has never forgotten how the
average-or less than average-per-
son has to struggle.
That was the reason he fought for
poli.ic decency and clean govern.
ment in the house OF assembly al
Trenton-and cor that was made sec
rotary to the president of the United
States
During his two years at Trenton
Tumulty COMMITTED between HIS
home in Jersey City and the capital
every day, rising at 5:45 to catch an
early train and getting home any
where from to midnight He would
MT move because his wife, to whom
he was married ten years ago, was
comfortably settled with the six little
Tumultys-four girls and two boys
in a coy home that he didn't want &c
! change.
That early rising habit. together
with his fondness for hard work, ex.
plains why he gets to the white
house every morning at o'clock and
throws double distilled chill into his
office staff in particular and official
Washington in general.
Tumulty was educated at the Cath.
Ollie schools of Jersey City and studied
law in an office afterwards, working
between times He had been prac
ticing law FIVE years when he was
elected to the legislature, and had
been making good rapidly.
In personal appearance Tumulty Is
almost beautiful. He Is feet, 7 IL
inches and is rather chubby. His hair
is almost golden and his skin Is as
fair and pink as woman's. But he is
not in the least feminine, the reason
probably being his strong jaw and
his straightforward. penetrating blue
eyes. His personality is charming