I then returned to New York, and on my own responsibility, leased national headquarters at No. 30 East Forty-second Street, signing the lease in my own name, after I had shown the rooms to Colonel House and Charles R. Crane, who approved my selection. I bought and rented furniture, typewriters, and other supplies, and got everything in shape so that the moment the approaching Convention was over, and the new Campaign Committee named, they would find the tools for their work ready to hand, and could go on the job without the delay we had experienced in 1912. In view of the hopelessness which I had found among the party leaders, and in view of the very narrow margin by which Mr. Hughes was defeated the following November, I take pride in the consciousness that my activities were one of the necessary factors that led to Mr. Wilson’s reëlection in 1916. I shall return later in this article to other dramatic incidents of that campaign, including some of the exciting events of Election Night that are not generally known. Meanwhile, in addition to the negative difficulties of apathy and despair, there were numerous positive troubles that needed immediate attention. I shall describe one of these problems in which I was called upon to take a hand personally in straightening it out. It concerned the appointment of a Postmaster for New York City. Here was a dangerous political situation. The late John Purroy Mitchel was then Mayor of New York City, and was making a splendid record. His presence in that position was of course a standing annoyance to Tammany Hall, which he had fought all his life. Tammany was already irritated enough at the Administration, because of President Wilson’s unbending opposition. Some of the party managers in the Administration at Washington had thought to placate Tammany by a tardy recognition of the “Wigwam” in the shape of an appointment of a Postmaster agreeable to Murphy. Postmaster General Burleson had manipulated this arrangement, and when I arrived in Washington, I found that the appointment of a Tammany man to be Postmaster had proceeded so far that the commission was on President Wilson’s desk for him to sign. The man to be named was Joseph Johnson, who was an intimate associate of Murphy’s, and who had done some very aggressive publicity work for Tammany Hall. Murphy had had him appointed Fire Commissioner of New York under Mayor Gaynor, and Mayor Mitchel had displaced him when he succeeded Gaynor. In retaliation, Johnson had taken great pleasure in spreading political propaganda adverse to Mitchel, so that there was an intense political feud between the two men. I realized that Johnson’s appointment as Postmaster would deeply offend the better element of the Democrats in New York, and would cause such dissension as probably to result in our losing the state and national election. I knew, too (and this was perhaps of even greater importance), that Johnson’s appointment would be so repugnant to the New