General Collins said he would be on hand to open the Sea Girt camp for the new commander-in-chief of the National Guard next summer. He was asked if Mr. Wilson could ride a horse, an accomplishment that has given several Governors a lot of trouble.

"I asked him that," replied the General, "and he said: 'Did you ever see a Virginian who couldn't ride?' He's all right.'

It was the unanimous verdict of all those who came that the candidate is all right, and James E. Martine, the "farmer orator," who is highly honored in his home county, was in a state of bewildering delight, for it was Martine who early last spring really launched the Wilson boom at a dinner at the Democratic Club, at which Mr. Wilson made an effective and compelling address on "Democratic Opportunity."

At the dinner, which followed the reception, were gathered fully 100 leading and active Democrats, all aroused to a plane of enthusiasm unprecedented in the county. The three candidates for Assembly, Calvin E. Brodhead, Hugh McLaughlin and Abram P. Morris, who are said to have an excellent show of election, despite Union's usual Republican majority, were in the party. L. T. Russell, a former Mississippi and Oklahoma editor, now proprietor of the Daily Times, is sure Mr. Wilson will carry the county by a clean majority.

XXXIII

PLEADS FOR OPEN DOOR

WANTS THE PEOPLE BROUGHT INTO CLOSE CONTACT WITH THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT

Hoboken, Oct. 29. In a return visit to Democratic Hudson County to-night Woodrow Wilson found himself in the midst of a fresh demonstration of his following by the common people. All unexpectedly he was called upon to address three meetings, one at West Hoboken, one at West New York and a third here, every one of them attended by immense numbers of people, and all showing the utmost interest in the speaker's arguments and line of reasoning. It was a trying ordeal for the candidate, but he bore up well under it and displayed in all his addresses the same great strength and courage and valor.

Mr. Wilson was met at the University Club, New York, by former State Comptroller William C. Heppenheimer, City Chairman Griffin and a committee of local Democrats, who brought him across to New Jersey in an automobile, arriving at St. Michael's Hall, West Hoboken, for the first meeting, to the accompaniment of music of several bands, fireworks, and much cheering.

He spoke there half an hour, and then was started over to St. Joseph's Hall, West New York, where there was a brilliant electrical illumination, with more fireworks. After a twenty-minute address there he was brought to the main meeting, in St. Mary's Hall, in this city, where a great and demonstrative crowd had gathered, and his appearance was the signal for a mighty cheer, the waving of flags and hats, and, despite the lateness of the hour, the big crowd evinced an interest that was wonderful to see.

"There is a very remarkable thing in this campaign," said Mr. Wilson. "I have been struck by nothing so much in the audiences that I have faced as the evident sincerity. This is no ordinary campaign - it is evident the people have come out in order to do something, to accom

plish something. I don't wonder you feel as you do. We have drifted very far away from a Government by the people. We have a great many things between us and the Government that belongs to us.

"I think I can tell you what I mean by that statement. You know that when a bill is introduced in the legislature, whether it be the legislature of New Jersey or the legislature of New York, or the Congress at Washington, the first thing that happens to that bill is that it goes to a committee. That committee is appointed by the Speaker, who is chiefly connected with a great political organization, which great political organization is connected with certain business interests, and then, when the bill comes to be considered, it is generally considered by the committee and not by the legislature. Are you admitted? Is the public admitted to the deliberations of the committee? Not at all. "These deliberations are private in most instances. Of course, the committee holds hearings and allows persons who are interested in the subject matter of the legislation to come and be heard, either in person or by attorney, but those are public hearings. The deliberations of the committee are another matter. They are private, and most of the things that happen to bills happen in ways that the public cannot find out. Most of the bills that are intended for public interest are smothered in committees, and it requires an investigation which you cannot conduct to find out why they are smothered.

"Something is between you and legislation, when you come to debate upon the floor- either of the National Legislature or the legislature of the state. You know what has recently happened in Washington; what we call Cannonism is the control of legislation by the Speaker. One man who appoints all the committees, dictates to these committees what they shall do with the bills and won't allow anybody to get on the floor to oppose them who has not had a previous understanding that he will be recognized, so that you can get up and shout your throat out at 'Mr. Speaker' and you won't be seen, although you are under the nose of the Speaker, shaking your finger at him in the space right before his desk.

"He does not see you; he does not hear you; but he recognizes somebody over there in the distance who has had a previous understanding with him that he would be recognized. If you want any time for debate you have to go and dicker with the chairman of the committee and get him to share his time with you and, as if it were his time and not the time of the people, in order that he may recognize your right of debate. It is all a game, tied up in private understanding.

"Now, these understandings may be perfectly honorable, they may be intended for the public good, but my point is that they are private and not public, and that the debates on the floor of Congress, and, for most part, debates on the floor of the state legislature, do not amount to anything and are not worth reading.

"A Governor who wants to know what is going on behind all the closed doors has opportunities to find out and will greatly relish talking about it aloud. There are a good many men on the Democratic ticket with me in the several counties of this state, men who have been and who I hope will be in the legislature of this state, who are just as dead in earnest about letting the people of this Commonwealth have a grip upon this legislature as anybody else. Some of them can talk most eloquently. I don't have to talk for them; I have come here to let you see what kind of a chap I am."

"Three cheers for Doctor Wilson!" yelled a man in the audience, and the crowd let loose with startling vim.

"Now you know a very interesting thing has happened. During the latter part of the month of November there's going to meet in Frankfort, Ky., a body of Governors, all the Governors in the United States. You know they were twice heard. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft called them together. Now they have formed an association of their own and are not going to wait for the President to call them together again. They have a chairman, a secretary and a permanent organization, and they are going to hold annual meetings. What for? To compare notes, to see how their several commonwealths coöperate in respect to those matters about which the state legislatures are most interested. Don't you see how interesting that is? What are they going to do?

"Are they going to go home and twiddle their thumbs? Aren't they going home with opinions in their heads? Aren't they going home with ambitions to serve a great people, with a consciousness of what immense issues are involved, and with the desire in their hearts to submit wise counsel, gathered from such sources?

"There is, if the Governors of these states are wise enough to exercise it, a great leadership in store for them of the most legitimate sort, not given them by the law, but given them in their several commonwealths as they are about to control public opinion. That is what I call bringing the people back to their Government, giving them a spokesman, giving them direct contact with the things that are going on generally. That is what I call government by public opinion, which is what our arrange

ments are for. Let that thing get once started and you will find that there are no locks on committee doors; you will find that everything will slowly creep out into the open.

"We want the contact of public affairs with public opinion. That is what we are after in this state, and that is what we are going to get. We are going to get it, no matter what happens, because it does not depend even on the next 8th day of November. This tide is rolling so that nobody can get out of its way. There is no dam that can stop it; there is no subterfuge that can escape it. This thing is going to rise and overwhelm everything that is antagonistic."

At the St. Mary's Hall meeting, previous to the arrival of Mr. Wilson, several speakers held the attention of the great audience. Assemblyman Joseph P. Tumulty made a strong and direct appeal to the voters to stand by Wilson as a man of the highest character and integrity, whom the party bosses cannot control, but who will be his own master when he takes the executive chair in January. Mr. Tumulty explained why Vivian M. Lewis should not be supported, the chief reason being that, while a member of the Assembly from Passaic County, he always was arrayed on the side of the special interests as against the people's interests, and always has been in the grip of the party bosses.

Mr. Tumulty presented the legislative records to show that he was talking by the book and he was cheered lustily. For the first time since the campaign opened Mayor H. Otto Wittpenn, of Jersey City, appeared on the platform and he was making a vigorous address when the candidate and his escort appeared. It was all off then, for the crowd arose and broke into a perfect storm as he was made the point of a flying wedge to force a way up a side aisle. At the close of the meeting, terminating Mr. Wilson's fifth week of campaigning, he was hustled over to Jersey City to get a train for his Princeton home.