James Wilson

“ That loft above the rafters, thought the provident Wilson, will come in braw and handy for storing things, so it will. And there, hey presto! the transformation [Pg 79] was achieved, and Wilson's Emporium stood before you. It was crammed with merchandise. On the white flapping slant of a couple of awnings, one over each window, you might read in black letters, "JAMES WILSON: EMPORIUM." The letters of "James Wilson" made a triumphal arch, to which "Emporium" was the base. ”

“ Wilson asked the American people to be impartial in thought because he knew as a historian the danger that threatened if the country were to be divided into two hostile camps, the one blindly and unreasoningly applauding every act of the Germans and the other blindly and unreasoningly applauding every act of the Allies. In the early years of his life the Republic was all but wrecked by the emotional and political excesses of the pro-French Americans and the pro-British Americans in the war that followed the French Revolution. ”

“ Many of the best men of that trying period were scourged, lacerated and for a time paralyzed by reckless party spirit.
Among its victims was James Wilson, born of respectable parents near St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1742. His father was a farmer in moderate circumstances which he moderated still more by rushing into the whirlpool of speculation—an unfortunate propensity that adhered to this son. ”

“ Once a man has taken a crooked step, he’s almost sure to take others. Supposed to be dead, Sage surely traveled under a fictitious name. A certain crook, called James Wilson and known among his pals as Gentleman Jim, bears a strong resemblance to the young bank-looter who was sent to Sing Sing. This crook was arrested in the town of Harpersville a short time ago, but made his escape from the jail, nearly killing the guard as he did so. A big reward has been offered for Wilson’s capture. The last peg in my argument is that this Gentleman Jim is none other than Clarence Sage himself. ”

“ In 1774 he wrote a spirited essay on the assumptions of the British Parliament not warranted by Magna Charta and portrayed the blessings arising from a republican form of government in such fascinating colors that it exercised a wide and salutary influence. To the uninitiated in party politics it may seem strange that any one accused James Wilson of aristocracy or a want of patriotism. A purer friend of his country or a more ardent advocate of the cause of freedom could not be found among the sages of '76. ”

“ No man ever sat in the President's chair who was more genuinely a democrat or held more tenaciously to his faith in democracy than Woodrow Wilson, but no other man ever sat in the President's chair who was so contemptuous of all intellect that was inferior to his own or so impatient with its laggard processes. ”

“ They walk through life wrapped comfortably round in the wool of their own conceit. Gourlay, [Pg 69] though a dull man—perhaps because he was a dull man—suspected insult in a moment. But it rarely entered Wilson's brain (though he was cleverer than most) that the world could find anything to scoff at in such a fine fellow as James Wilson. A less ironic brute than Gourlay would never have pierced the thickness of his hide. It was because Gourlay succeeded in piercing it that morning that Wilson hated him for ever—with a hate the more bitter because he was rebuffed so seldom. ”

“ Thus the social compact is no longer a pactum subjectionis. It is no longer a question of deciding whether in a society the individual or the society are sovereign, since both are sovereign in their respective domains. How far Jefferson was from being a demagogue is clearly indicated by the sentence in which he refers to James Wilson. ”

“ WILSON, JAMES ARTHUR (1795–1882) , physician, son of James Wilson, the surgeon and teacher of anatomy at the Hunterian school in Great Windmill Street, was born in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1795. His mother was a daughter of John Clarke of Wellingborough, and sister to Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke [q. v.] He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster school in 1808, and was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, on 9 May 1812. ”

“ I mean the reward offered for the party known as James Wilson, or Gentleman Jim.”
“Piper, you’re on the wrong track. My brother is not Gentleman Jim.”
Again Sleuth shrugged. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he drew forth the printed description of James Wilson which he had clipped from the newspaper.
“This fits him to a tee,” he said. “He must be the man.” ”

“ He ran where Mr. Peden was, who said. “Oh! Jamie, Jamie, I am glad your head is safe, for I knew it would be in danger.” He took his knife, and cut away the other knot.
36. About this time, he and James Wilson in Douglas, a singularly known man to many, was at Airdsmoss; and being together some time, without speaking, as Mr. Peden's ordinary was, when there was any extraordinary thing in his head, they came to Mr. Cameron’s grave, where he and other eight were buried. After sitting some time on the grave, he gave James a clap on the shoulder with his heavy hand. ”

“ The hope, the aspiration for a new world order of peace and right and justice—however deeply and universally felt—was still only feeble and ineffective in comparison with the dominant national passions which found their expression in the peace treaty. Even if Wilson had been one of the great demi-gods of the human race, he could not have saved the peace. Knowing the Peace Conference as I knew it from within, I feel convinced in my own mind that not the greatest man born of woman in the history of the race would have saved that situation. ”

“ In Washington's time America became a Nation. In Lincoln's time our country was united and made one. In Wilson's time our Nation received recognition as the greatest of the world powers. It remained, however, for Wilson alone to reach the highest pinnacle of international prominence in the face of the pitiless cross fires of today's newspaper press. ”

“ To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
This was not Woodrow Wilson, the intellectual aristocrat, who was speaking, but Woodrow Wilson, the fervent democrat, proclaiming a new declaration of independence to the embattled peoples. ”

“ That James as a husband might remain unblemished in goodness and wisdom she had resolved to know nothing of James the public employer.
James for his part had not so much accepted her sacrifice as not noticed it, and now it was wasted. She knew now what her husband's goodness and wisdom were. He was neither honest, nor loyal, nor pure—he was a loose man, stained, unscrupulous; a man—she told herself this because it made her suffer—a man no better than the men who preyed on Florrie Wilson. ”

“ Wilson's final proposals for mediation had been accepted. The United States would not have entered the war, and a less violent readjustment of the internal affairs of Europe would probably have resulted. There would have been no Bolshevist revolution in Russia and no economic collapse of Europe. Nor is it certain that most of the really enduring benefits of the Treaty of Versailles could not have been as well obtained by negotiation as they were finally obtained through a military victory which cost a price that still staggers humanity. ”

“ But besides the American quarrel with President Wilson there is something to be said on the great matters in issue. On these I may be permitted to say a few words.
The position occupied by President Wilson in the world's imagination at the close of the great war and at the beginning of the peace conference was terrible in its greatness. It was a terrible position for any mere man to occupy. Probably to no human being in all history did the hopes, the prayers, the aspirations of many millions of his fellows turn with such poignant intensity as to him at the close of the war. ”

“ Here in this paper is the description of one James Wilson, alias ‘William Hunt,’ alias ‘Philip Hastings,’ but known among his pals as ‘Gentleman Jim.’ This man is described as twenty-six years of age, five feet, ten inches in height, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. While there are no distinguishing marks upon his person, he has blue eyes ”

“ Had there been no war, these policies in themselves would have given to the Wilson Administration a place in American history higher than that of any other since the Civil War. What some of his predecessors talked about doing he did, and he accomplished it by the process of making himself the responsible leader of his party in Congress—a process that is simple enough but capable of fulfillment only in the hands of a man with an extraordinary capacity for imposing his will on his associates. ”

“ It is the realist and not the idealist who is generally justified by events. We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle.
Paris proved this terrible truth once more. It was not Wilson who failed there, but humanity itself. It was not the statesmen that failed so much as the spirit of the peoples behind them. ”

“ The process of naval reinforcement was slow, and not till 1918 did the American Navy become a really important factor in the anti-submarine campaign; but every destroyer added to the allied forces was of immediate value. The American Treasury was opened for vast credits to the Allies, who by their enormous purchases of war materials in the United States had created the abounding prosperity of 1916, and had pretty nearly exhausted their own finances in doing so. More than that, the Administration began at once to prepare for the organization of a vast army ”

“ As a constructive statesman Wilson had no superior in the Federal Convention of 1787. He favoured the independence of the executive, legislative and judicial departments, the supremacy of the Federal government over the state governments, and the election of senators as well as representatives by the people, and was opposed to the election of the President or the judges by Congress. His political philosophy was based upon implicit confidence in the people, and he strove for such provisions as he thought would best guarantee a government by the people. ”

“ Mr. Wilson perceived quite as quickly and quite as early as anybody the possibility that the United States would be drawn into the war, but he perceived also what most of his critics failed to perceive, that the immediate danger of the country was not war but a divided people. While he was engaging in framing the first Lusitania note he discussed the situation with one of his callers at the White House in words that have since proved prophetic:
I do not know whether the German Government intends to keep faith with the United States or not. ”

“ Wilson had no desire to see the country drift into a similar situation in which American rights, American interests and American prestige would all be sacrificed to gratify the American adherents of the various European belligerents. Moreover, he understood far better than his critics that issues would soon arise between the belligerents and the United States which would require on the part of the American people that impartiality of thought that is demanded of the just and upright judge. He knew that the American people might ultimately become the final arbiters of the issues of the conflict. ”

“ No American President except Lincoln had ever been concerned with matters of such vital importance to the nation; and not even Lincoln had had to deal with a world so complex and so closely interrelated with the United States. Washington, Jefferson and Madison had to guide the country through the complications caused by a great world war; but the nation which they led was small and obscure, concerned only in keeping out of trouble as long as it could. The nation which Wilson ruled was a powerful State whose attitude from the very first was of supreme importance to both sides. ”

“ America, he said, had no quarrel with the German people; that people had not made the war. But the Germans were ruled by an autocratic Government which had made neutrality impossible, which had shown itself "the natural foe of liberty." That Government had forced America to take up the sword for the freedom of peoples—of all peoples, even of the German people. America must fight "to make the world safe for democracy." On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war. ”

“ With her flow’rets bespangles the green. THE BANKS OF THE TYNE. BY JAMES WILSON.
James Wilson, the author of this, and the four following poetical pieces, belonged to Hexham, where he taught school until he removed to Morpeth, under pecuniary embarrassment: while here, he found a friend in the late Wallis Ogle, Esq. and was by him conducted to Cawsey Park School, where he shortly after died. When at Hexham, he published a volume of Poems printed by T. Angus, Newcastle, in 1778. ”

“ Wilson was likewise totally deficient in the art of advertising, and advertising is the very breath of American politics. He held himself aloof from all these points of public contact. The World's relations with him have certainly been as close and intimate as those of any other newspaper; yet during the eight years in which Mr. Wilson has been in the White House he never sought a favor from The World, he never asked for support either for himself or any of his policies, he never complained when he was criticised, he never offered to explain himself or his attitude on any issue of government. ”