Some time after our first meeting I called on Mr. Page at Garden City, and told him I was now ready to immerse myself completely in the campaign; and some months after this William G. McAdoo invited me to join him at a luncheon with William F. McCombs, who was then in full charge of Wilson’s campaign for the nomination. I then agreed to subscribe a substantial sum, and, also, to undertake raising money from others. They accepted both offers gladly. I found the first by far the easier to make good. To redeem the second was a very different matter: my friends in the business world looked upon me almost as one who had lost his reason. “Why,” they asked me, “should any one who has property be willing to entrust the management of the United States to the Democratic Party? How can a reasonable man hope for Wilson’s nomination against veterans like Bryan, Clark, and Underwood? And how can any Democrat hope for victory against the intrenched Republicans?” It was the hardest proposition that I ever undertook to sell, but we managed somehow to meet our financial emergencies as we came to them. Meanwhile, the other candidates were busy. William Jennings Bryan had been, for years, at once the prophet and the Nemesis of the Democratic Party. He controlled its national machinery. Thrice he had led it to defeat, and now, for the fourth time, he aspired to lead the charge. Party politicians, who knew that Bryan’s economic heresies were fatal to the party, did not dare call together the national committee, where his discipline ruled their actions. The only other place where party councils could be taken was in the National Capitol. For this reason, the cloakroom of the House of Representatives became the whispering gallery of other aspirants. The House developed two candidates for the nomination: Champ Clark, the genial Speaker; and Oscar Underwood, the popular and substantial floor leader of the majority. Nevertheless, we adherents of Wilson were not dismayed. Our plan of action was to secure a few state delegations, and, for the rest, to concentrate our energies upon creating, through the press, a sentiment among the Democratic masses, which, we hoped, at the end would prove irresistible in the Convention.