of the
University of Virginia, one of the pioneer educational forces in the
Southern States, and for years an associate of Page on the General
Education Board, was stricken with tuberculosis. He was taken to
Saranac, and here a patient course of treatment happily restored him to
health. One of the dreariest aspects of such an experience is its
tediousness and loneliness. Yet the maintenance of one's good spirits
and optimism is an essential part of the treatment. And it was in this
work that Page now proved an indispensable aid to the medical men. As
soon as Dr. Alderman found himself stretched out, a weak and isolated
figure, cut off from those activities and interests which had been his
inspiration for forty years, with no companions except his own thoughts
and a few sufferers like himself, letters began to arrive with weekly
regularity from the man whom he always refers to as "dear old Page." The
gayety and optimism of these letters, the lively comments which they
passed upon men and things, and their wholesome and genial philosophy,
were largely instrumental, Dr. Alderman has always believed, in his
recovery. Their effect was so instant and beneficial that the physicians
asked to have them read to the other patients, who also derived
abounding comfort and joy from them. The whole episode was one of the
most beautiful in Page's life, and brings out again that gift for
friendship which was perhaps his finest quality. For this reason it is
a calamity that most of these letters have not been preserved. The few
that have survived are interesting not only in themselves; they reveal
Page's innermost thoughts on the subject of Woodrow Wilson. That he
admired the new President is evident, yet these letters make it clear
that, even in 1912 and 1913, there was something about Mr. Wilson that
caused him to hesitate, to entertain doubts, to wonder how, after all,
the experiment was to end.

To Edwin A. Alderman

Garden City, L.I.
December 31, 1912.

MY DEAR ED ALDERMAN:

I have a new amusement, a new excitement, a new study, as you have
and as we all have who really believe in democracy--a new study, a
new hope, and sometimes a new fear; and its name is Wilson. I have
for many years regarded myself as an interested, but always a
somewhat detached, outsider, believing that the democratic idea was
real and safe and lifting, if we could ever get it put into action,
conten