“Hello, Page, come out here:  I am glad to see you.”  There he stood in a door at the back of the room, which led to his library and work room.  “Come back here.”

“In the best of all possible worlds, the right thing does sometimes happen,” said I.

“Yes.”

“And a great opportunity.”

He smiled and was cordial and said some pleasant words.  But he was weary.  “I have cobwebs in my head.”  He was not depressed but oppressed—­rather shy, I thought, and I should say rather lonely.  The campaign noise and the little campaigners were hushed and gone.  There were no men of companionable size about him, and the Great Task lay before him.  The Democratic party has not brought forward large men in public life during its long term of exclusion from the Government; and the newly elected President has had few opportunities and a very short time to make acquaintances of a continental kind.  This little college town, this little hitherto corrupt state, are both small.

I went at my business without delay.  The big country-life idea, the working of great economic forces to put its vitalization within sight, the coming equilibrium by the restoration of country life—­all coincident with his coming into the Presidency.  His Administration must fall in with it, guide it, further it.  The chief instruments are the Agricultural Department, the Bureau of Education, and the power of the President himself to bring about Rural Credit Societies and similar organized helps.  He quickly saw the difference between Demonstration Work by the Agricultural Department and the plan to vote large sums to agricultural colleges and to the states to build up schools.

“Who is the best man for Secretary of Agriculture?”

I ought to have known, but I didn’t.  For who is?

“May I look about and answer your question later?”

“Yes, I will thank you.”

“I wish to find the very best men for my Cabinet, regardless of consequences.  I do not forget the party as an instrument of government, and I do not wish to do violence to it.  But I must have the best men in the Nation”—­with a very solemn tone as he sat bolt upright, with a stern look on his face, and a lonely look.

I told him my idea of the country school that must be and talked of the
Bureau of Education.  He saw quickly and assented to all my propositions.

And then we talked somewhat more conservatively of Conservation, about which he knows less.

I asked if he would care to have me make briefs about the Agricultural Department, the Bureau of Education, the Rural Credit Societies, and Conservation.  “I shall be very grateful, if it be not too great a sacrifice.”

I had gained that permission, which (if he respect my opinion) ought to guide him somewhat toward a real understanding of how the Government may help toward our Great Constructive Problem.

I gained also the impression that he has no sympathy with the idea of giving government grants to schools and agricultural colleges—­a very distinct impression.