xtended their tentacles into the ranks of Jefferson was all too obvious
a fact; yet the Democratic party at that time Page regarded as the most
available instrument for embodying in legislation and practice the new
things in which he most believed. Above all, the Democratic party in
1912 possessed one asset to which the Republicans could lay no claim--a
new man, a new leader, the first statesman who had crossed its threshold
since Grover Cleveland.

Like many scholarly Americans, Page had been charmed by the intellectual
brilliancy of Woodrow Wilson. The utter commonplaceness of much of what
passes for political thinking in this country had for years discouraged
him. American political life may have possessed energy, character, even
greatness; but it was certainly lacking in distinction. It was this new
quality that Wilson brought, and it was this that attracted thousands of
cultivated Americans to his standard, irrespective of party. The man was
an original thinker; he exercised the priceless possession of literary
style. He entertained; he did not weary; even his temperamental
deficiencies, which were apparent to many observers in 1912, had at
least the advantage that attaches to the interesting and the unusual.

What Page and thousands of other public-spirited men saw in Wilson was a
leader of fine intellectual gifts who was prepared to devote his
splendid energies to making life more attractive and profitable to the
"Forgotten Man." Here was the opportunity then, to embody in one
imaginative statesman all the interest which for a generation had been
accumulating in favour of the democratic revival. At any rate, after
thirty years of Republican half-success and half-failure, here was the
chance for a new deal. Amid a mob of shopworn public men, here was one
who had at least the charm of novelty.

Page had known Mr. Wilson for thirty years, and all this time the
Princeton scholar had seemed to him to be one of the most helpful
influences at work in the United States. As already noted Page had met
the future President when he was serving a journalistic apprenticeship
in Atlanta, Georgia. Wilson was then spending his days in a dingy law
office and was putting to good use the time consumed in waiting for the
clients who never came by writing that famous book on "Congressional
Government" which first lifted his name out of obscurity. This work, the
product of a man of twenty-nine, was perhaps the first searching
examina