This narrative, throughout which fact is scrupulously adhered to, marks the achievement by the author of a fond ambition of more than a decade. It was on the night of October 1, 1913, that a youth of 21, just out of college and a law student, invaded the carefully guarded precincts of Hickory Hill and revealed to the Sage his purpose" to keep the record straight" when the Sage should be here no more to do so for himself. The revelation brought from Georgia's most versatile son an expression of such generous gratitude that the young man went away with his heart pounding with new emotion, his mind thrilled with new inspiration. Yes, he would write a life of Tom Watson-in all its success and defeat, all its storm and color. With the years went a correspondence to the very purpose and end the two had planned that night at Hickory Hill. And when the Sage was no more in life, all his private papers-rich beyond measure-were put at the exclusive use of the man who had dreamed. The promise is now made good. The true account of the public life, and not a little of the inner, of a strange and most ingenuous figure, whose influence has yet to reach its largest scope, follows here for the first time.