One of the most useful individual contributions to our ultimate success in the Pacific Coast states was the vigorous campaign waged in the West by Mr. Bainbridge Colby on his own initiative. Mr. Colby, it will be recalled, had been a Republican, but in 1916 he was attracted by the progressive character of Woodrow Wilson. He therefore aligned himself as a member of the Democratic Party, and became one of President Wilson’s most ardent supporters. His services were of the greatest value.
Despite our anxieties, we came to Election Day with hopes so high that they amounted to complete confidence in the result. So sure was I of the outcome, that I invited as many of my political friends as remained in New York (most of the National Committeemen had gone to their homes to vote) to join me at a dinner at the Biltmore on Election Night, November 6th. We arranged to receive the returns at the table, and planned that the occasion should be one of progressive jubilation.
When the dinner began, we were a happy party. Mrs. McAdoo’s vivacity was the keynote of an evening full of jest and laughter, and of confident anticipation of victory and four years more of Democratic control of National policies. Everything went merrily until about nine o’clock, when unfavourable returns began to filter in, and gloom began to settle on the assembly. Nervousness gave way to consternation when, about ten o’clock, we received word that the New York Times and the New York World had flashed their beacon lights to announce that the Republicans had won. Mr. McAdoo sank deep in his chair, the picture of dejection. Mrs. McAdoo’s vivacity and appetite fled together. They excused themselves comparatively early, and departed. Our dinner soon became, what it was afterward aptly called, a “Belshazzar’s Feast.” The party broke up, and those of us who had been active in the campaign, headed by Vance McCormick, hurried back to headquarters on Forty-second Street. The news from New Hampshire, Minnesota, and California was especially encouraging. We resolved that, whatever else happened, this should not be another Tilden-Hayes defeat. We sent for Attorney General Gregory, and at our request, he telephoned to United States District Attorney Anderson in Boston, ordering him to send deputies at once into New Hampshire, to see that no violations of the election laws were permitted, and especially to guard against the reported intimidation of election officials preparing their returns.
The newspaper reporters were flitting back and forth between our headquarters and the Republicans, and we got from them a report that financial men were gathering in the headquarters of the enemy, and were raising an enormous fund to affect the returns from the West. We used the reporters to carry an ultimatum to the Republicans. We reminded them that we had control of the Federal legal machinery, warned them that we had already put the United States authorities in all doubtful states on the watch, and assured them that if the proposed fund were raised, it could only be for illegal purposes, and that if this effort were not instantly stopped, the whole crowd would find themselves in jail on the following morning. If they seriously contemplated such action, this threat was effective to stop it, and no effort was made by the Republicans to use funds improperly.
We then concentrated our attention upon California. Within an hour had secured a through telegraph wire to Democratic headquarters in San Francisco and arranged that every precaution be taken to secure a fair count throughout the state.
We kept a close watch also on Minnesota, where, if we had needed it, I have always been convinced a recount would have given us a majority that would have made the loss of California a matter of no moment. We all spent the entire night at headquarters, my son going out at three o’clock in the morning to bring us in hot rolls and coffee. At six o’clock in the morning, our collars wilted, our dress shirts soiled, and looking generally bedraggled, we took taxis to our several residences to refresh ourselves with bath and breakfast, and to change into business garments. By eight o’clock everyone was back at headquarters, and we worked through that entire day and until midnight without sleep. Our reward was the final assurance of victory.
Woodrow Wilson was again President of the United States. The nation could count upon an uninterrupted and consistent policy through the critical winter of 1916-1917, and the world was the gainer by the exalted leadership and sustained nobility of policy which marked our reluctant, but high-minded, entrance into the World War, and its progress to a victorious conclusion.
CHAPTER XIII
MY MEETINGS WITH JOFFRE, HAIG, CURRIE, AND PERSHING
JUST one week after the United States entered the war, President Wilson invited twenty-four men from all parts of the country to meet in Washington on April 21, 1917, to consider means of financing the American Red Cross. As I was one of the group, I came to Washington a day earlier, and a few of us met at dinner. Of the guests that I can now recall there were Charles D. Norton, Cornelius N. Bliss, Jr., Cleveland H. Dodge, Vance McCormick, and Eliot Wadsworth. We all agreed that the funds should be raised by a nation-wide popular subscription. The impression of all those present, with the exception of myself, was that about five, or at the most ten, millions could be raised for this purpose. I vigorously contested this point of view, and suggested that the minimum sum that we should start out to raise was fifty million dollars. I outlined the terrific needs, not only in this country, but also in Europe, for help of this kind. None of them agreed with me that as large a sum as fifty millions could be secured, and they finally said: “If you feel this way about it, you propose it at the full committee meeting to-morrow.”
The next day, when the committee was in session, I made the proposition and was astonished that none of those present at first grasped the idea that the American people could be induced to subscribe fifty million dollars. I then spoke a second time and told the committee that the American Jews alone (of whom there were only three million) were then engaged in raising a fund of ten million dollars for their co-religionists abroad, and pointing to my friend, Julius Rosenwald, added: “There is one man in this room who individually obligated himself to contribute up to one million dollars to that fund. And I have no doubt there are several other men in this room who could and would subscribe one million dollars to the Red Cross, to say nothing of the other patriotic Americans who would do likewise.”