A primary for United States senator had been held the same day of the election of governor. Not dreaming that Democratic success would extend to the Legislature, the Democratic primary for senator had been allowed to go by default, or at least to take care of itself. The total Democratic vote was 73,000 and James E. Martine had received 54,000 of these. After a bitter fight, in which Governor Wilson showed he was the real leader of his party and able to cope successfully with the old politicians who did not know that a new day and a new leader had arrived, the Legislature elected Mr. Martine, who had led in the primary, giving him forty votes, while James Smith, Jr., who insisted upon becoming a candidate, when he had declared before election he would not run, received only four. It was a preliminary victory which greatly encouraged the new general and his soldiery for coming battles. For battles there must needs be, because not only was there Republican opposition to contend with but some of the old Democratic organization leaders could not soon forget the Governor's triumph in the defeat of their old leader. Governor Wilson found the Legislature to be constituted as follows: Senate: Republicans 12, Democrats 9; Assembly: Republicans 18, Democrats 42. The platform on which the party had won promised four vital reforms, a direct primary bill, a corrupt practices act, a public service commission with power to fix rates, and an employer's liability and workingmen's compensation law. Bitter opposition to these reforms developed, secretly even among some Democratic members who were supposed to be pledged to them. Few believed the Governor could force them through. When informed that it would be the end of the session before they could be reached, he replied that if that were the case an extra session would be called to pass them. He invited Republican as well as Democratic members to call upon him at his offices. If they did not come he sent for them. He won over some by his logical reasoning, others by his magnetic personality. To some who were extremely stubborn he proposed canvassing their own districts with them. Once in a message he intimated that he might be compelled to name publicly the balking members but as a matter of fact he never had to do so. He never made ugly threats but he often smilingly suggested that Jersey public opinion was back of his arguments.
In a legislative session of three months, in spite of the fact that the upper house of the legislature was of the opposite party to him, Governor Wilson fulfilled every demand of the people in securing this important legislation:
(1) The reform of the election laws was achieved by a Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it impossible for any corporation to contribute in any way towards the election of any candidate, and likewise makes the use of money on election-day unlawful and difficult; direct primaries for all elective state, county and municipal offices; direct primaries for United States senator and delegates to national conventions, with popular expression for choice for president; civil service tests for election officers and personal registration for all voters; non-partisan ballots in both primaries and elections.
(2) The better regulation of corporations was accomplished by a comprehensive Public Utilities Law, fixing the responsibility on officers of corporations for all violations, and vesting power in a commission to make rates and physical valuation of public service companies.
(3) Accidents to workingmen were provided for by a workmen's compensation law, providing for automatic payments for injuries or loss of life, in all industries, and doing away with the old fellow-servant responsibility of the common law.
(4) An act was passed enabling cities to adopt the commission form of government.
(5) A law was passed providing for the complete reorganization of the complicated state school system, whereby politics was eliminated.
(6) A law was passed regulating cold storage and other laws to purify the milk supply and to keep oysters from contamination.
Governor Wilson's extraordinary success in putting reforms through the New Jersey legislature gave him a strong lead for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, and when the Democratic convention met at Baltimore on June 25, 1912, the New Jersey Executive was in a forward position as one of the people's favorites. Feeling that he was not the representative of progressive politics, the selection of Judge Parker as temporary chairman was earnestly opposed by Honorable William J. Bryan, who sent telegrams to every presidential candidate asking whether Parker was satisfactory for this position. To this telegram Wilson did not hesitate to reply without equivocation that he felt that the choice of Parker would be a mistake. That telegram, sent contrary to the dictates of the old political method of trimming, was a master stroke. It showed that Wilson was no opportunist, but was ready to declare his position when silence or straddling was recommended. Parker won, and it seemed at first as if those who opposed him were doomed to defeat. The deadlock, which lasted from June 25 until July 2, gave Bryan his opportunity, for it allowed the story of the fight that was being made for Wilson as the most militant leader of Progressive measures to find its way back to the uttermost corners of the country. The national Democracy was thrilled. The people began to telegraph their wishes to the delegates, and they strongly favored the nomination of Wilson. It is said that one hundred and ten thousand telegrams were received by delegates. Mr. Bryan himself receiving 1,112 signed by more than thirty thousand persons. Mr. Bryan became the leading spirit of the Convention and he threw his support to Governor Wilson, who made slow but steady gains until his final triumph. On the first ballot he received three hundred and twenty-four votes, and on the forty-sixth, which nominated, nine hundred and ninety.
Upon accepting the nomination for the presidency, Mr. Wilson thus succinctly summarized in his speech at Sea Girt the two great things he would undertake to do:
“There are two great things to do. One is to set up the rule of justice and of right in such matters as the tariff, the regulation of the trusts and the prevention of monopoly, the adaptation of our banking and currency laws to the varied uses to which our people must put them, the treatment of those who do the daily labor in our factories and mines and throughout all our great industrial and commercial undertakings, and the political life of the people of the Philippines, for whom we hold governmental power in trust for their service, not our own. The other, the additional duty, is the great task of protecting our people and our resources and of keeping open to the whole people the doors of opportunity through which they must, generation by generation, pass if they are to make conquest of their fortunes in health, in freedom, in peace and in contentment. In the performance of this second great duty we are face to face with questions of conservation and of development, questions of forests and water powers and mines and waterways, of the building of an adequate merchant marine, and the opening of every highway and facility and the setting up of every safeguard needed by a great, industrious, expanding nation.”
In this speech Governor Wilson contended that representative government is nothing more nor less than an effort to give voice to the great, struggling body of the masses — the learned and the fortunate, as well as the uneducated — through spokesmen chosen out of every grade and class. He declared it to be a fact which it would be dangerous to ignore that, “We stand in the presence of an awakened nation — awake to the knowledge that she has lost certain cherished liberties and has wasted priceless resources which she had solemnly under taken to hold