The first great test of our success (and, what was more important, of Wilson’s capacity to grow to national stature) came on the occasion of the Jackson Day dinner at Washington on January 8, 1912. This classic festival of Democracy has, every quadrennium, a special and a solemn significance for candidates for the Presidency. It is somewhat like the opening day of the Kentucky Derby at Louisville, when the favourite horses are led out before the first race for the inspection of the spectators. A seat at this dinner is as much prized by Democratic politicians as a grandstand seat is at the races. The candidates and their managers are as much excited as are the horse owners and their trainers. Upon the showing made at this preliminary try-out depends much of the crystallization of the sentiment amongst the politicians in favour of one special candidate. Our first experience with this dinner was a disappointment. We men who were active in Governor Wilson’s behalf had our headquarters at the New Willard Hotel; and we had gone there a day earlier to make arrangements for more than one hundred of the leading Democratic politicians and citizens of New Jersey who were coming on to Washington the next day, to back up Wilson’s aspirations. Imagine our dismay when we found that, of the sixty-five tickets for the dinner to which New Jersey was entitled, fifty had been given to Mr. Nugent instead of to Mr. Grosscup, the chairman of the state committee. Mr. Nugent was one of Governor Wilson’s bitterest opponents, and well enough we knew that we could not get back the tickets from him. News of this blow came to me at 11 o’clock at night, just as I was turning out my light preparatory to retiring. My telephone rang. I heard the excited voice of Judge Hudspeth, the national committeeman from New Jersey, exclaiming: “Come right over to our room! We need you at once!” “But,” I protested, “I am just getting into bed for the night.” “Haven’t you learned yet,” he cried impatiently, “that politicians never sleep?” Reluctantly, I got back into my clothes and went to his rooms. There I found McCombs, Congressman Hughes, Mr. Grosscup, Joe Tumulty, and others. They were angry at the miscarriage of the tickets, which they attributed to trickery; and gloomy at the thought of the poor showing we would make to our hundred and more friends from New Jersey who were coming down to the dinner, and who would charge us with lack of influence in the higher councils of the party. I turned the situation over in my mind while they were giving vent to their indignation, and said: “I think I see a way to turn this mishap into a victory. Let us arrange an overflow dinner for Mr. Wilson’s friends exclusively, and give him an opportunity to show his appreciation of their presence, and to get their inspiration.”