It was this new quality that Wilson brought, and it was this that attracted thousands of cultivated Americans to his standard, irrespective of party.

The man was an original thinker; he exercised the priceless possession of literary style.

He entertained; he did not weary; even his temperamental deficiencies, which were apparent to many observers in 1912, had at least the advantage that attaches to the interesting and the unusual.
What Page and thousands of other public-spirited men saw in Wilson was a leader of fine intellectual gifts who was prepared to devote his splendid energies to making life more attractive and profitable to the "Forgotten Man." Here was the opportunity then, to embody in one imaginative statesman all the interest which for a generation had been accumulating in favour of the democratic revival.

At any rate, after thirty years of Republican half-success and half-failure, here was the chance for a new deal.

Amid a mob of shopworn public men, here was one who had at least the charm of novelty.
Page had known Mr.Wilson for thirty years, and all this time the Princeton scholar had seemed to him to be one of the most helpful influences at work in the United States.