I cannot keep from saying what a new thrill of hope and tingle of expectancy I feel—­as of a great event about to happen for our country and for the restoration of popular government; for you will keep your rudder true.

Most heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

To Governor Wilson,
Princeton, N.J.

Page was one of the first of Mr. Wilson’s friends to discuss with the President-elect the new legislative programme.  The memorandum which he made of this interview shows how little any one, in 1912, appreciated the tremendous problems that Mr. Wilson would have to face.  Only domestic matters then seemed to have the slightest importance.  Especially significant is the fact that even at this early date, Page was chiefly impressed by Mr. Wilson’s “loneliness.”

Memorandum dated November 15, 1912

To use the Government, especially the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, to help actively in the restoration of country life—­that’s the great chance for Woodrow Wilson, ten days ago elected President.  Precisely how well he understands this chance, how well, for example, he understands the grave difference between the Knapp Demonstration method of teaching farmers and the usual Agricultural College method of lecturing to them, and what he knows about the rising movement for country schools of the right sort, and agricultural credit societies—­how all this great constructive problem of Country Life lies in his mind, who knows?  I do not.  If I do not know, who does know?  The political managers who have surrounded him these six months have now done their task. They know nothing of this Big Chance and Great Outlook.  And for the moment they have left him alone.  In two days he will go to Bermuda for a month to rest and to meditate.  He ought to meditate on this Constructive programme.  It seemed my duty to go and tell him about it.  I asked for an interview and he telegraphed to go to-day at five o’clock.

Arthur and I drove in the car and reached Princeton just before five—­a beautiful drive of something less than four hours from New York.  Presently we arrived at the Wilson house.

“The Governor is engaged,” I was informed by the man who opened the door.  “He can see nobody.  He is going away to-morrow.”

“I have an appointment with him,” said I, and I gave him my card.

“I know he can’t see anybody.”

“Will you send my card in?”

We waited at the door till the maid took it in and returned to say the Governor would presently come down.

The reception room had a desk in the corner, and on a row of chairs across the whole side of the room were piles of unopened letters.  It is a plain, modestly but decently furnished room, such as you would expect to find in the modest house of a professor at Princeton.  During his presidency of the college, he had lived in the President’s house in the college yard.  This was his own house of his professorial days.