But he did ask me who would be a good man and I said “Houston.”  You are not quite fair to him in your editorial.  He does know—­knows much and well and is the strongest man in the Cabinet—­in promise.  The farmers don’t yet know him:  that’s the only trouble.  Give him a chance.

I’ve “put it up” to the new President and to the new Secretary to get on the job immediately of organizing country life.  I’ve drawn up a scheme (a darned good one, too) which they have.  I have good hope that they’ll get to it soon and to the thing that we have all been working toward.  I’m very hopeful about this.  I told them both last week to get their minds on this before the wolves devour them.  Don’t you think it better to work with the Government and to try to steer it right than to go off organizing other agencies?

God pity our new masters!  The President is all right.  He’s sound, earnest, courageous.  But his party!  I still have some muscular strength.  In certain remote regions they still break stones in the road by hand.  Now I’ll break stones before I’d have a job at Washington now.  I spent four days with them last week—­the new crowd.  They’ll try their best.  I think they’ll succeed.  But, if they do succeed and survive, they’ll come out of the scrimmage bleeding and torn.  We’ve got to stand off and run ’em, Uncle Henry.  That’s the only hope I see for the country.  Don’t damn Houston, then, beforehand.  He’s a real man.  Let’s get on the job and tell ’em how.

Now, when you come East, come before you need to get any of your meetings and strike a bee-line for Garden City; and don’t be in a hurry when you get here.  If a Presbyterian meeting be necessary for your happiness, I’ll drum up one on the Island for you.  And, of course, you must come to my house and pack up right and get your legs steady sometime before you sail—­you and Mrs. Wallace:  will she not go with you?

In the meantime, don’t be disgruntled.  We can steer the old world right, if you’ll just keep your shoulder to the wheel.  We’ll work it all out here in the summer and verify it all (including your job of setting the effete kingdoms of Europe all right)—­we’ll verify it all next winter down in North Carolina.  I think things have got such a start that they’ll keep going in some fashion, till we check up the several items, political, ethical, agricultural, journalistic, and international.  God bless us all!

     Most heartily always yours,

     WALTER H. PAGE.

Though Mr. Wilson did not offer Page the Agricultural Department, he much desired to have him in his Cabinet, and had already decided upon him for a post which the new President probably regarded as more important—­the Interior.  The narrow margin with which Page escaped this responsibility illustrates again the slender threads upon which history is constructed.  The episode is also not without its humorous side.