Mr. Wooley had sternly cautioned Paderewski against over-optimism. So his heart sank when he was greeted at the door by a radiant Madame Paderewska. “You are going to save Poland!” she cried, her beautiful eyes filled with tears. “I know it!” And as the two men walked the few blocks to House’s East Fifty-third Street brownstone home, the practical man of business wondered even more at the Polish pianist’s calm and complete faith in the events of the next few minutes. Well, perhaps he was right, but Wooley was inclined to doubt it.
Colonel House had marked half an hour off his tight schedule for his interview with Paderewski, so the two men did not waste time on small talk. Paderewski had been waiting a long time for this moment. He was ready for it. Pacing up and down the Colonel’s library, he began to tell his story. Point by point he built his arguments for Poland, with a mixture of logic and eloquence that an experienced lawyer might have envied.
The half hour flew by. Nervously Mr. Wooley looked at his watch and then glanced at the Colonel. “Let him go on,” House muttered. “Don’t interrupt him.”
An hour passed and then another hour. Whatever Colonel House’s later appointments were, they were cancelled. Never in his career of listening to people who wanted something had he heard a man plead his cause so irresistibly.
When he had made his last point, Paderewski stopped and waited for the Colonel to speak. House’s part in the two hour conversation was limited to three sentences, but they were the most beautiful words Paderewski had ever heard. “You have convinced me,” he said, rising and holding out his hand. “I promise you to help Poland if I can. And I believe I can.”
It was the beginning of a profound friendship between the two men, one so eloquent, and one so silent. And with the Colonel completely won over to his side, the door to the White House stood open to Paderewski at last. By the summer of 1916 House felt that the time had come to introduce the pianist to President Wilson. He arranged to have the Paderewskis invited to a diplomatic dinner at the White House.
Woodrow Wilson was a scholar and a statesman. He had been a college president before he went into politics. Such a man, Paderewski believed, would understand the justice of his cause.
There was great excitement after dinner that night when guests saw the piano in the East Room being opened. Was Paderewski really going to play? He was, they were told, since the President had asked him to do so.
Although President Wilson did not know a great deal about music, it did not take any special knowledge to get the message that the Polish artist was trying to convey by means of Chopin’s music. Paderewski and Chopin had become partners in this enterprise, and never had the two worked together so eloquently. As Wilson and Paderewski talked briefly together after the performance, the pianist felt that he had won his country another powerful ally.
