Princeton, New Jersey,
April 29, 1907.

MY DEAR MR. JOLINE:

Thank you very much for sending me your address at Parsons, Kan.,
before the board of directors of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway
Company. I have read it with relish and entire agreement. Would that
we could do something, at once dignified and effective, to knock Mr.
Bryan once for all into a cocked hat!

Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.

The publication of this letter came at a most inopportune time for the
Wilson candidacy, and how to meet it was one of the most difficult
problems that the Wilson forces had to face. Our enemies were jubilant.
They felt that at last they had broken our lines and that we would not be
able to "come back."

At this time I was at the State House at Trenton and I received a telegram
from the Governor, requesting that I come at once to Washington, where he
was conferring with the leaders of his forces in an effort to find some
way to neutralize the bad effects of the Joline cocked-hat story in
advance of the Jackson Day banquet, at which Mr. Bryan would be present.
On my arrival in Washington I went to the Willard Hotel and found the
Governor hi a conference with William F. McCombs, Tom Pence, Senator
O'Gorman, and Dudley Field Malone. We discussed the situation fully and
the character of reply the Governor should make by way of explanation of
the Joline letter. Mr. Josephus Daniels, a friend and associate of Mr.