“You do not realize what a load you are lifting from my shoulders. I can now devote myself entirely to campaigning and to my duties as Governor.”
I considered the discussion closed and was about to leave, when the Governor detained me.
“One thing more,” he said. “There are three rich men in the Democratic Party whose political affiliations are so unworthy that I shall depend on you personally to see that none of their money is used in my campaign!”
I gave him my assurance, and he gave me their names. This was the only occasion on which I discussed finances with Mr. Wilson from that day to this. I made good my promise that he should have no cause to think again of finances. And when he went into the White House he went without obligations, expressed or implied, to any man for any money that had been contributed during the campaign.
The principal reason I was able to make good my promise to the Governor was that I instituted, for the first time in American political history, a budget system both for collecting the funds and expending them. I called to my assistance Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, a budget expert; and in consultation with the members of the Democratic National Committee, we worked out an allotment of the amounts we expected from the various states. We then worked out the kinds of legitimate expenditures which we would encounter, weighed their relative values, and allotted to each its corresponding proportion of the money we expected to raise. With minor exceptions, we adhered to this budget throughout the campaign; and we had the great pleasure of paying every bill in full before the first of the following January, and of having $25,000 cash balance to the credit of the National Committee in bank.
My financial work in the National Committee was novel to me only in the sense that it was managing the use of money in a new field. But my work with the Committee on its human and political sides was an entirely new experience, and a very fascinating one.
On the human side, I found the same play of personal ambitions--of jealousy and other evil passions--aroused by the prospect of advantage in politics, that I had seen aroused by the prospect of material reward in business. But, on the whole, the human picture in politics was as pleasant as it was interesting. Our headquarters was, to be sure, the scene of the ill-humoured rivalries of McCombs and McAdoo and their adherents; but, on the other hand, it was the scene also of the touching fraternal devotion of “Joe” Wilson, whom the Governor affectionately called “my kid brother,” who gladly did all the tasks that came to hand out of sheer regard for the Governor. The delightful friendships that I formed with Rollo Wells, Josephus Daniels, Joseph E. Davies, Senator O’Gorman, Hugh C. Wallace, Homer S. Cummings, and others, were a source of enduring pleasure. We all soon fell into the genial habit of calling one another by our first names--this is indeed a custom of the National Committee. McCombs, who felt somewhat my greater age, began calling me “Uncle Henry,” a name which has since stuck to me in the familiar conversation of most of my close political friends.
