The wizard behind the curtain

On Nov. 24, 1911, Woodrow Wilson met the obscure kingmaker from the Lone Star State who would make him the 28th president of the United States. Over dinner that historic evening at his New York penthouse, Edward Mandell House decided the scholarly governor of New Jersey was the ideal Democrat to break the Republicans’ 16-year hold on the Oval Office. A Lone Star quartet exercised unprecedented…