From Tiberias, our route led us to Damascus, where we spent several days exploring this most ancient of cities, and the beautiful surrounding country, and visiting the very attractive ruins at Balbek. Thence, we went to Beirut where the Syrian Protestant College is located--one of the finest American institutions in the Near East. Here we visited a very interesting Jewish settlement also. We then journeyed to Mersine, Adena, Tarsus, and Rhodes, returning to Constantinople on May 1st. CHAPTER XII THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 In January, 1916, I applied to the State Department for a leave of absence, so that I might pay a visit to the United States, which I had not seen for more than two years. I had begun to feel the effects of the nervous strain of my labours to avert the terrible fate of the Armenians and Jews. These labours, and my experiences with German diplomatic intrigue in Constantinople during the war, have already been described in my earlier book, published in 1918 under the title, “Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story,” to which I must refer any of my readers who are interested to pursue my Turkish experiences further. I spent the first few days after my return to the United States with my old political friends in Washington, and I was shocked at the prevailing political atmosphere. Not one of the numerous men high in the Administration with whom I talked had the slightest hope that President Wilson could be reëlected that fall. They were all convinced that, as the breach in the Republican Party had been healed, our political opponents were prepared to present a united front and were determined to win; and that, on the other hand, the Administration had made so many enemies in the preceding three years that the President’s defeat in November was a foregone conclusion. Tammany had received no consideration at his hands, and was very bitter; and hence there was little likelihood of our carrying New York. “Organization leaders,” otherwise the bosses, generally, had been ignored, and the party machinery was rusty from disuse, where it was not actually broken down by dissension. William G. McAdoo told me frankly of his intention shortly to resign from the Cabinet and return to private business. Josephus Daniels spoke hopelessly of the political outlook. Frank L. Polk and Franklin D. Roosevelt gave me the same picture of party dissension, apathy, and despair. Even Senator James A. O’Gorman of New York, whom I had known for many years as a man of native optimism and Irish courage, said to me: “Henry, it is sheer insanity to talk of reëlecting President Wilson. He hasn’t a ghost of a chance. I am convinced that the Democratic Party will be buried under a Republican landslide this fall.” But after listening to my enthusiastic arguments to prove that the President simply must be reëlected and that we could convince the country of this necessity, he shared my conviction. He said: “Henry, if I had had your viewpoint on this matter earlier, I