Woodrow Wilson’s Marbles Challenge in Trenton
On Thursday, February 27, 1913, Woodrow Wilson sat at the State House in Trenton, New Jersey, and opened his mail.
He was 56 years old, the governor of New Jersey and the former head of Princeton University. In five days, he would be President of the United States. Inside one envelope, however, waited an unexpected schoolyard dare accompanied by a small box of brown clay marbles.
The strange challenge stemmed from a joke Wilson had made himself regarding his brief unemployment between offices. His job as governor was scheduled to end at noon on Saturday, March 1, while his job as president would begin at noon on Tuesday, March 4. For those three intervening days, he would hold no office at all, existing simply as a plain citizen.
Reflecting on that brief window of freedom, Wilson remarked that he would like to turn a handspring in celebration of his short relief from upholding the dignity of office, according to United Press reports. Newspapers painted the vivid picture of a serious professor in a long wool coat attempting one on the State House lawn.
The Hotel Keeper’s Dare
Reading about the proposed handspring, a New York man named “Lon” Leary of the Hotel St. Andrews decided the next president needed a different kind of test. Leary mailed Wilson a challenge to a game of marbles, writing, “I will shoot you ‘rings for knucks’ after school,” as documented in the Atlanta Georgian on February 28, 1913.
The package contained thirteen marbles of the brown clay variety by the Atlanta Georgian’s count, though other publications recorded fifteen. They were the plain, cheap kind common in any child’s pocket. Responding with characteristic competitive spirit, Wilson declared, “I don’t know Mr. Leary and I don’t know how good a marble player he is, but I’ll bet I can beat him.”
When asked by someone in the room if he would play for keeps—meaning the winner would take home every marble knocked out of the ring—Wilson simply laughed and noted that Mr. Leary had not yet named the stakes, according to the Virginia Gazette.
Gilmore Wagers Doughnuts While Washington Costs Rise
Another piece of mail brought a different kind of wager from a Mr. Gilmore, who had read about the handspring in the public prints. Gilmore offered to wager a whole doughnut to a hole in another that Wilson could not actually pull off the stunt, warning him not to be rash.
Meanwhile, reports from the nation’s capital detailed the high financial stakes awaiting visitors for the upcoming inauguration. As noted in the Perth Amboy Evening News, hotel rooms commanded $50 a day, windows overlooking the parade route cost $100 an hour, and even rough board seats or tree branches offered to spectators ran $5 each.
Fearing a repeat of the blizzard that struck President Taft’s inauguration four years prior, the planning committee also hired an army of 300 snow shovelers to stand ready with clear paths.
Transition to the Presidency
In the end, the next president turned the hotel man down. At noon on Saturday, March 1, Wilson stopped being governor, leaving the president of the state senate to take over since New Jersey had no lieutenant governor, as reported by the Atlanta Georgian.
That evening, neighbors in Princeton attended a goodbye party at his home. On Monday, March 3, Wilson boarded a train for Washington, arriving as a private citizen in a top hat before taking office as the 28th president the following day.
