I had been with him an hour and had talked (I fear) too much.  But he seemed hearty in his thanks.  He came to the front door with me, insisted on helping me on with my coat, envied me the motor-car drive in the night back to New York, spoke to eight or ten reporters who had crowded into the hall for their interview—­a most undignified method, it seemed to me, for a President-elect to reach the public; I stepped out on the muddy street, and, as I walked to the Inn, I had the feeling of the man’s oppressive loneliness as he faced his great task.  There is no pomp of circumstance, nor hardly dignity in this setting, except the dignity of his seriousness and his loneliness.

* * * * *

There was a general expectation that Page would become a member of President Wilson’s Cabinet, and the place for which he seemed particularly suited was the Secretaryship of Agriculture.  The smoke of battle had hardly passed away, therefore, when Page’s admirers began bringing pressure to bear upon the President-elect.  There was probably no man in the United States who had such completely developed views about this Department as Page; and it is not improbable that, had circumstances combined to offer him this position, he would have accepted it.  But fate in matters of this sort is sometimes kinder than a man’s friends.  Page had a great horror of anything which suggested office-seeking, and the campaign which now was started in his interest greatly embarrassed him.  He wrote Mr. Wilson, 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