Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/571

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548 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS the contribution^ whereupon the offer itself was withdrawn. After much bitterness and open discussion of the merits of the plan of the new graduate school and the wisdom of turning away money from the college, another event happened. Three million dollars were left for the building of the college on the plans which were opposed by the president. Events seemed to be against him. He bowed to a defeat which came in a way that no man could have escaped. The continuation of the controversies over the abolition of the clubs and over the plans for the new graduate college, in- volving as they did deep and powerful emotions, had devel- oped an intensity of feeling that is rarely realized in the col- lege world. No one who does not know Princeton can quite understand it. And the depth of the feeling made it inevit- able that President Wilson should feel that his place was no longer at Princeton. His enemies could not cause his dis- missal but they had made his stay undesirable. But his fight for democracy and human rights against the power of money had not escaped the attention of the people of the country, and especially of the people of New Jersey. The tide of opposition to political dishonesty and inefficiency was rising in that state, so long dominated by corrupt influ- ences. Moreover, the democratic party of the state was then out of power. What was more natural than that the leaders of the party, taking advantage of the rising tide of progres- siveness, should ride back into power with a popular hero who stood for popular rights! There was no mistaking the char- acter of the leaders of the Democratic Party in New Jersey. They were political bosses of the usual type. How, then, could there be any alliance between such men and a man who stood for the things that Wilson didt The answer is, first, that some such man was their only hope to get the party into power; and second, they believed that once in power they could easily manage a pedagogue. There is no evidence that Mr. Wilson in any way com- promised himself in accepting the nomination of the party. On the other hand there is every evidence that he frankly stated both publicly and privately his opposition to the meth-