laws. Mr. Wilson, then,
was known to the country not only as a reformer but as a successful
reformer; and his victories over the professional politicians of the
old school had removed most of the latent fear of the ineffectuality of
a scholar in politics. In point of fact, the chief interest of this
particular scholar had always lain in politics, and it was partly
chance and partly economic determinism that had diverted him in early
life from the practice of politics to the teaching of its principles
and history.

Abroad, where his election was received with general satisfaction, he
was still regarded as the scholar in politics, for a Europe always
inclined to exaggerate the turpitude of professional politicians in
America liked to see in him the first fruits of them that slept, the
pioneer of the better classes of American society coming at last into
politics to clean up the wreckage made by ward bosses and financial
interests. Scarcely any American President ever took office amid so
much approbation from the leading organs of European opinion.

His radicalism caused no great concern abroad and was regarded with
apprehension only in limited circles at home--and even here the
apprehension was more over the return to power of the Democratic Party
than on account of specific fears based on the character of the
President-elect. The business depression of 1913 and 1914 would
probably have been inevitable upon the inauguration of any Democratic
President, particularly one pledged to the carrying out of extensive
alterations in the commercial system of the country. For in 1912 Wilson
had been in effect the middle-of-the-road candidate, the conservative
liberal. Most of the wild men had followed Roosevelt, and the most
conservative business circles felt at least some relief that there had
been no re-entry into the White House of the Rough Rider, with a gift
for stinging phrases and a cohort of followers in which the lunatic
fringe was disproportionately large and unusually ragged.

So Woodrow Wilson entered the Presidential office under conditions
which in some respects were exceptionally favorable. His situation was
in reality, however, considerably less satisfactory than it seemed. To
begin with, he was, in spite of everything, a minority President and
the representative of a minority party. He had even, during a good part
of the Baltimore Convention, been a minority candidate for the
nomination. If the two wings of the R