sentiment against a breach of the Washingtonian tradition of a two-terms
limit; but the main factor was the hostility of the Bosses and the
Trusts behind them, and the weapon they used was their control of the
Negro "pocket boroughs" of the Southern States, which were represented
in the Convention in proportion to their population of those States,
though practically no Republican votes were cast there. Colonel
Roosevelt challenged the decision of the Convention, and organized an
independent party of his own under the title of "Progressive," composed
partly of the defeated section of the Republicans and partly of all
those who for one reason or another were dissatisfied with existing
parties. In the contest which followed he justified his position by
polling far more votes than his Republican rival. But the division in
the Republican Party permitted the return of the Democratic candidate,
Dr. Woodrow Wilson.

The new President was a remarkable man in more ways than one. By birth a
Southerner, he had early migrated to New Jersey. He had a distinguished
academic career behind him, and had written the best history of his own
country at present obtainable. He had also held high office in his
State, and his term had been signalized by the vigour with which he had
made war on corruption in the public service. During his term of office
he was to exhibit another set of qualities, the possession of which had
perhaps been less suspected: an instinct for the trend of the national
will not unlike that of Jackson, and a far-seeing patience and
persistence under misrepresentation and abuse that recalls Lincoln.

For Mr. Wilson had been in office but a little over a year when Prussia,
using Austria as an instrument and Serbia as an excuse, forced an
aggressive war on the whole of Europe. The sympathies of most Americans
were with the Western Allies, especially with France, for which country
the United States had always felt a sort of spiritual cousinship.
England was, as she had always been, less trusted, but in this instance,
especially when Prussia opened the war with a criminal attack upon the
little neutral nation of Belgium, it was generally conceded that she was
in the right. Dissentients there were, especially among the large German
or German-descended population of the Middle West, and the Prussian
Government spent money like water to further a German propaganda in the
States. But the mass of American opinion was decidedly favo