The intimate papers of Colonel House arranged as a narrative by Charles Seymour.

CHAPTER III
BEGINNINGS OF A FRIENDSHIP
It looks to me as if they depended too much upon speech-making and
noisy demonstrations, and not enough upon organization.
House to Wilson, August 28, 1912
WOODROW WILSON and Colonel House first met on November 24, 1911, a year before the presidential election. Already House had decided definitely that circumstances
made of Wilson the most available candidate, one who could
arouse the enthusiasm of the voters in the electoral campaign, and one who, if elected, possessed the courage and the
imagination to lead a vigorous reform administration. For
these were the two qualities which the Colonel believed essential to a successful President.
Governor Wilson, in his turn, must have found his curiosity piqued by the friendly efforts of the unseen House,
word of which had been brought to him during the summer.
Without experience in national politics, he knew little or
nothing of the career of House in Texas, nor of his relations
there with the successive Governors and with Bryan. But he
appreciated the skill with which House, working through
Senator Culberson, had disposed of the attacks on Wilson's
party regularity that threatened to destroy his candidacy
even while in the embryonic stage; and he was impressed by
the success of his address in Texas which House and
Gregory had arranged.
This beginning of what Sir Horace Plunkett later called
'the strangest and most fruitful personal alliance in human
history,' should properly have taken place under more dramatic auspices. The small hotel room where they met did
not add glamour to the occasion and neither could guess what
the political future held in store for them. But each evi