Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-19
Woodrow Wilson
AS. [ Know Him
By JOSEPH P. TUMULTY
CHAPTER TX
A Party Split

AL Tic plOpllSClCS dIlu Su1CIlOIlo
of the political seers and philoso-
pliers of New Jersey, many of them
of course feeling their own partisan
| pulse, were annhilated and set adrift
by the happenings in New Jersey ON
the first Tuesday in November, 1910.
| Woodrow Wilson, college professor,
man of mystery, political recluse, the
nominee Of the most stand-pat Demo
cratic convention of many years,
had been chosen the leader of the
people of the state by the unprece-
dented majority of $4,000 and was
wearing the laurels of victory. The
old bosses and leaders chuckled and
| smiled; they were soon to have a
! Roman holiday under the aegis OF
the Wilson administration.
There were many surprises in the
| Wilson victory. The Democrats
awoke on the day after election to
find that they had not only won the
! goVernorship of the state, but their
! joy was unbounded to find that they
| had captured the lower house of the
| legislature that would have the cleo
| ton, under the preferential primary
system just adopted, of a United
States senator. Therein lay the fly
| in the ointment.
| Never in their widest dreams or
vain imaginings did the leaders of
the Democratic party believe that
there was the slightest chance, even
under the most favorable circum-
stances, of carrying a majority of
! the vote of the state for the Demo-
cratic choice, James E. MARITIME, of
| Plainf1eld.
! Democratic Hopes Meager
The suggestion that it was posi-
bic to elect a Democrat to the United
States senate was considered a form
of political heresy. The nomination
! for the senate had been thrown
about the state until, torn and tat
| tered almost beyond repair, it was
| finally taken up and salVaged by
that sturdy old Democrat of Union
county, Jim MARITIME. Even I had
received the offer of the senatorial
toga, but the one who brought the
nomination to me was rudely cast
out of my office. The question was:
What would be the attitude of the
new Democratic leader, Woodrow
| Wilson, toward the preferential
! choice, MARITIME? Would the vote at
the election be considered as having
the full virtue and Vigor of a solemn
referendum, or was it to be consider
| ed, as Senator Smith would have it,
sort of practical joke perpetrated
, upon the electors? Soon the opinion
of the people of the state began to
| express itself in no uncertain way:
demanding the carrying out of the
solemn covenant" of the election,
only to be answered by the challenge
of Senator Smith and his friends to
| hn oil
choice at the election.
This business pitchforked the gov
ernor-elect prematurely into the
rough-and-tumble of politics as she
is" not always a dainty game. AS
review in retrospect this famous
chapter of state history, which, be-
cause of the subsequent supreme dis
| tinction of one of the parties to the
contest, became a chapter in national
history, I realize the almost pathetic
situation of Mr.. Wilson. He had
called himself an amateur in poll
tics, and such he was in the practi-
cal details and involutions of the
| great American game though in his
campaign he had shown himself a
master of political debate. In the
/ ordinary course of events he would
have been allowed two months be-
| tween his election and Inauguration
to begin an orderly adjustment to
| the new life, to make a gradual
transition from the comedy proprie-
| ties of an academic chair to the
| catch-as-catch-can methods of the
political wrestling mat, to get &C
! quainted with the men and problems
| of the new career. But the Smith
MARITIME affair gave birth premature
| ly to an immediate occasion for a
fight.
The MARITIME Dilemma
AS president of Princeton, DIR. Will
son had proved that he was not
averse to a fight when a fight was
necessary, and when it was distinct
ly his affair, but he may we'll have
paused to consider whether the
Smith MARITIME business was his af-
fair. One of his favorite stories in
later years was of the Irishman
who entered a saloon and seeing two
men in tangle of fists and writing
legs and bloody heads on the floor
at the rear of the saloon, turned to
the barkeeper and asked, "Is this a
private fight, or can anybody git
into it," A more polite man than
Woodrow Wilson, and one less sensi-
tive to mortal duty, might we'll have
argued that this contest was the
business of the legislature, not of the
governor. Many governor-elect
would have avoided the issue on this
unquestionably sound legal principle
and friends in Princeton were in fact
advising Mr.. Wilson to precisely this
course, the course of neutrality. II
would not be strange if neutrality
aloofness, had presented a rather at
tractive picture at times to Mr.. Will
sons mind. Why should he gratui
tously take a partisan position be-
tween the factions which would in
evitably win for him the enmity Of
stron gelement within the party!
Which would also win for him the
unpleasant reputation Of ingrati
tude? For, though he had at the first
overtures from Senator Smith and
his friends made it as clear as Ian
guage can make anything that he
could accept the nomination only
with the explicit understanding that
acceptance should establish no obi
cations of political favors to any