, disclaiming all
responsibility and begging him to ignore these misguided efforts. As the
best way of checking the movement, Page now definitely answered Mr.
Wilson's question: Who was the best man for the Agricultural Department?
It is interesting to note that the candidate whom Page nominated in this
letter--a man who had been his friend for many years and an associate on
the Southern Education Board--was the man whom Mr. Wilson chose.

_To Woodrow Wilson_

Garden City, N.Y.
November 27, 1912.

MY DEAR WILSON:

I send you (wrongly, perhaps, when you are trying to rest) the
shortest statement that I could make about the demonstration
field-work of the Department of Agriculture. This is the best tool
yet invented to shape country life. Other (and shorter) briefs will
be ready in a little while.

You asked me who I thought was the best man for Secretary of
Agriculture. Houston[7], I should say, of the men that I know. You
will find my estimate of him in the little packet of memoranda. Van
Hise[8] may be as good or even better if he be young in mind and
adaptable enough. But he seems to me a man who may already have
done his big job.

I answer the other questions you asked at Princeton and I have
taken the liberty to send some memoranda about a few other men--on
the theory that every friend of yours ought now to tell you with
the utmost frankness about the men he knows, of whom you may be
thinking.

The building up of the countryman is the big constructive job of
our time. When the countryman comes to his own, the town man will
no longer be able to tax, and to concentrate power, and to bully
the world.

Very heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

_To Henry Wallace_

Garden City, N.Y.
11 March, 1913.

MY DEAR UNCLE HENRY:

What a letter yours is! By George! we must get on the job, you and
I, of steering the world--get on it a little more actively. Else it
may run amuck. We have frightful responsibilities in this matter.
The subject weighs the more deeply and heavily on me because I am
just back from a month's vacation in North Carolina, where I am
going to build me a winter and old-age bungalow. No; you would be
disappointed if you went out of your way to see my boys. Moreover,
they are now merely clearing land. They sold out th