Herbert Quick to Woodrow Wilson

The other night I went to Keith's to see "America's Answer." When the show was over I went out by the north exit. You and your party were getting into your car in the alley as I reached the stairway. I could have dropped a bomb on you and on your car with the greatest ease.

I think it is perfectly capable of demonstration that it is possible for an assasin to carry a weapon into that theatre and to murder you on almost any occasion when you go there. The thing has got on my nerves; but it has affected the minds of others in the same way.

My study of history has not furnished my mind with an instance of any man occupying a place from which his removal would have so profoundly affected world conditions. Thousands of men and women would be willing to die to get rid of you. Whole nations would be thrown into despair by such a deed. The head of Hasdrubal thrown into the camp of Hannibal seems the only case comparable in fatefulness.

And our Constitution does not provide a successor in whom the world would have confidence.

Pardon me for stating this case as it appears to an outsider; and pardon an appeal in which every American would be glad to join, for greater caution.