on a bulletin board before the Baltimore _Sun_ offices there was posted
the announcement "WILSON AGREES WITH BRYAN" and before it hundreds of
Wilson men gathered, cheering the message of the New Jersey Governor.

The reply of the New Jersey Governor was prepared by him while he was
seated on the side of a little bed in one of the rooms of the Sea Girt
cottage. He looked at me intently, holding a pad and pencil in his hands,
and then wrote these significant words to Mr. Bryan: "_You are right_."

I have often wondered what effect on the Convention McCombs' proposed
reply, which contained a rebuke to Mr. Bryan, would have had. From that
time on Mr. Bryan was the devoted friend of the New Jersey Governor. Mr.
Wilson's reply had convinced the Nebraskan that the Governor was not
afraid to accept the issue and that he was in favour of supporting a
preliminary organization that was to be progressive both in principle and
by conviction.

McCombs was obsessed with the idea that the New York delegation must be
won; that everything else was negligible compared with that. Therefore he
wished Mr. Wilson in his reply to say something that would be considered
by the New York delegation as a public rebuke to Mr. Bryan. I afterward
learned that McCombs, nervous, incapable of standing the strain and
excitement of the Convention, had retired to a friend's house at Baltimore
where, after the Woodrow Wilson telegram to William Jennings Bryan, he was
found in a room, lying across a bed, crying miserably. To the inquiries of
his friends as to what was the matter with him McCombs replied, weeping,
that the Governor had spoiled everything by his telegram to Bryan; that
had the Governor followed his [McCombs'] advice, he could have been
nominated.