"HAD WOODROW WILSON been a man to look back upon his eight years in the White House, he might well have regarded his achievements with some complacency. Entering the Presidency with the same mental vigor that he had applied to the problems of Princeton and the state of New Jersey, he had pioneered a path around the pitfalls of plutocracy and mob rule and had effectively led a groping people toward political salvation. He had laid down a basic pattern for solving, without violence, those social and economic problems of the age that grew out of new ways of life. He had honoured the principle that men’s labor was not to be regarded as a commodity, had given impetus to collective bargaining, and had established the supremacy of the public interest above the advantage of any special combination of labor or capital or industrial management. His Federal Reserve policy gave promise of meeting the danger of recurring panic, and his tariff measures had helped to wean the nation from the pap of privilege. His administration had laid a foundation for a “welfare state” by providing for the matching of federal funds with those of the states to equalize certain facilities through the nation; new taxes had been levied to make this possible."