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Thursday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock, as I was holding the daily interview with the press, President Wilson, unannounced, came into the Navy Department. It was several minutes before I knew he was there. There had been a rapid fire of interrogations and answers between the Secretary and the correspondents when an officer came to my desk and said, "The President is here." He was sitting quietly at the other end of the big room, listening to the cross-examination which a cabinet officer undergoes at the hands of press representatives twice every day. And they always ask "searching questions." As soon as the newspaper men knew the President was in the room, they lost all interest in me and I asked to be excused from further questioning.

"Do you have to undergo that ordeal every day?" Mr. Wilson asked.

"Yes, twice every day," was my reply; "but it is not usually an ordeal. Being a newspaper man myself, I recall that most of my life has been spent in doing to other public officers what those reporters are doing to me—and, besides, I rather like it."