Shortly afterward Mr. Tumulty, the President's Secretary, brought
to the Shoreham Hotel in Washington an appeal to the country for a
Democratic Congress and read it to several Democrats gathered there
for the purpose, including Homer S. Cummings, who, by that time,
had become acting Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and
was in charge of the campaign. Mr. Cummings doubted the wisdom of
an appeal, couched in such terms as the one Mr. Tumulty read. He
took it to Vance McCormick, Chairman of the Democratic National
Committee, who, because he was Chairman of the War Trade Board, was
not taking part in the election. Mr. McCormick agreed with Mr.
Cummings that the appeal as written would do more harm than good to
the Democratic party, saying that the war had not been conducted on
a partisan basis, that some of his own associates on the War Trade
Board were Republicans and that Mr. Wilson should ask for the
reelection of all who had been loyal supporters of the war, whether
Republicans or Democrats.

The appeal to the country as it then stood contained a bitter
denunciation of Senator Lodge. What Wilson chiefly saw in a
Republican victory was himself at the mercy of the man he hated
worst, the Massachusetts Senator. Mr. McCormick thought that if the
President was going to name names he must, at least, denounce
Claude Kitchen, the Democratic leader of the House, as well as
Senator Lodge. If Mr. Wilson would ask for the reelection of those
who had been loyal, of whatever party, listing the offenders, of
both parties, including Mr. Lodge if he must, Mr. McCormick
believed that the impression on the country would be favorable and
thus a Democratic Congress might be elected.

Being agreed, Mr. Cummings and Mr. McCormick went to the White