whether the referendum on the question of the election of United States
senators should be treated as "a scrap of paper," or whether it was to be
upheld and vindicated by the action of the Legislature. No direct word
came to me of the Governor-elect's attitude on this vital question.
Rumours of his position toward Senator Smith's candidacy filtered "through
the lines" from Princeton; various stories and intimations that seemed to
indicate that the Governor-elect would allow Martine's selection to go by
default; that he would not interfere in any way to carry out the mandate
of the election.

Things were in this unsatisfactory condition when to my surprise I
received a call in my modest Jersey City law offices from the Governor-
elect. Knowing him as I know him, I can see that in his deliberate fashion
he was taking testimony from both sides and slowly arriving at his own
decision. Having heard from the cautious who counselled neutrality, he was
now seeking the arguments of the impetuous who demanded action and wanted
it "hot off the bat." But at that time, not knowing him as I now know him,
he seemed, in this interview, to be vacillating between two opinions, for
he did what I have often known him to do subsequently: stated with
lucidity the arguments of the other side, and with the air of one quite
open-minded, without opinions of his own, seemed to seek my arguments in
rebuttal. I was sorely disappointed by what then seemed to me his negative
attitude, so unlike the militant debater whom I had come to admire in the
campaign which had recently been brought to a brilliant and victorious
close. In my youthful impetuosity I felt that we had been deceived in our
man, a bold talker but timid in action. I simply did not then know the man
and the mixed elements in him. Later, in close association, I was to see
this phase of him not infrequently, the canny Scot, listening without
comment and apparently with mind to let to conflicting arguments while his
own mind was slowly moving to its own position, where it would stand fixed