As the days for the opening of the Baltimore Convention approached the New Jersey Governor and his family left Princeton for Sea Girt, a delightful place along the Atlantic seaboard, where the state of New Jersey had provided for its governor an executive mansion, a charming cottage, a replica of General Washington's headquarters at Morristown. With us to these headquarters, to keep vigil as it were over the New Jersey Governor, went a galaxy of newspaper men, representing the leading papers of the country. The first, and indeed the most important, situation the candidate was called upon to handle at Sea Girt as a preliminary to the Convention was his reply to the now famous Bryan-Parker telegrams, which played so important a part in the deliberations and indeed in the character of the whole Convention—It will be recalled that Mr. Bryan, who was in attendance at the Republican Convention at Chicago as a special correspondent, had telegraphed an identic telegram to each of the Democratic candidates, Messrs. Clark, Underwood, Wilson, and Harmon, as follows: Chicago, June, 1912. In the interest of harmony, I suggest to the sub-committee of the Democratic National Committee the advisability of recommending as temporary chairman some progressive acceptable to the leading progressive candidates for the Presidential nomination. I take it for granted that no committeeman interested in Democratic success would desire to offend the members of a convention overwhelmingly progressive by naming a reactionary to sound the keynote of the campaign. Eight members of the sub-committee, however, have, over the protest of the remaining eight, agreed upon not only a Reactionary but upon the one Democrat who, among those not candidates for the Presidential nomination, is, in the eyes of the public, most conspicuously identified with the reactionary element of the party. I shall be pleased to join you and your friends in opposing his selection by the full committee or by the Convention. Kindly answer here. W. J. BRYAN. I was on my way from New York to Sea Girt when I read a copy of this telegram in the evening papers. I believe that I grasped the full significance of this move on the part of Mr. Bryan. In fact, I became so anxious about it that I left the train before reaching my destination, in order to say to Governor Wilson over the 'phone how important I thought the message really was and how cautiously it should be handled. I tried to impress upon him the importance of the answer he was called upon to make to Mr. Bryan. He calmly informed me that he had not yet received the telegram and that he would, of course, give me an opportunity to discuss the matter with him before making his reply.