Woodrow Wilson

“ 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. ”

“ Woodrow Wilson has a talent which is Bryan's chief defect--the scientific habit of holding facts in solution. His mind is lucid and flexible, and he has the faculty of taking advice quickly, of stating something he has borrowed with more ease and subtlety than the specialist from whom he got it. Woodrow Wilson's is an elegant and highly refined intellect, nicely balanced and capable of fine adjustment. An urbane civilization produced it, leisure has given it spaciousness, ease has made it generous. ”

“ No men ever winced less under the criticism or bitter ridicule of his enemies than did Woodrow Wilson. Whether the criticism was directed at him or at some member of his Cabinet, or, mayhap, at a subordinate like myself, for some act, statement, or even an indiscretion, he bore up under the criticism like a true sportsman. I remember how manfully he met the storm of criticism that was poured upon him after the issuance of the famous Garfield Fuel Order. He courageously took the responsibility for the issuance of the order and stood by Doctor Garfield to the last. ”

“ As an intimate associate of Woodrow Wilson during the whole of the European war, and witnessing from day to day the play of his feelings, especially after the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, I am certain that had he been free to do so he would have yielded to the impulse of championing a cause that in his heart of hearts he felt involved the civilization of the world. ”

“ When Woodrow was two years of age the family moved to Augusta, Georgia. In those days Augusta, a city of fifteen thousand people, was one of the leading manufacturing cities of the South. With its great railroad shops, furnaces, rolling mills, and cotton mills, it was indeed a hive of industry.
As a boy Woodrow was called “Tommy” by his playmates; but as he grew into manhood he dropped his given name and signed himself––Woodrow Wilson. His mother was a Woodrow, and by signing his name Woodrow Wilson he hoped to do equal honor to each parent. ”

“ PREFACE Woodrow Wilson prefers not to be written about. His enemies may, and of course will, say what they please, but he would like to have his friends hold their peace. He seems to think and feel that if he himself can keep silent while his foes are talking, his friends should be equally stoical. He made this plain in October, 1920, when he learned that I had slipped away from my office at the White House one night shortly before the election and made a speech about him in a little Maryland town, Bethesda. ”

“ Upon being interrogated by me as to his interest in Woodrow Wilson, Boss Davis stated that if we nominated Woodrow Wilson there would be a big campaign fund put up for him by Moses Taylor Pyne, a trustee of Princeton University. Never before was the ignorance of a boss made more manifest. As a matter of fact, at that very time there was no more implacable foe of Woodrow Wilson in the state of New Jersey than Moses Taylor Pyne, who headed the opposition to Mr. Wilson in the Princeton fight. ”

“ No one more than Woodrow Wilson appreciated the tragedy of disappointment that might eventually follow out of his efforts for peace, but he was willing to make any sacrifice to attain the end he had so close to his heart.
He realized better than any one the great expectations of the American people. Discussing these expectations with Mr. Creel, who was to accompany him, he said: "It is to America that the whole world turns to-day, not only with its wrongs but with its hopes and grievances. ”

“ Mr. Wilson is a brilliant, calculating and vindictive man; brilliant in conception, calculating in motive and vindictive in execution.... Were he generous, kindly and humble, it would be difficult to find his like in the flesh or in history.”
That was my deliberate judgment after having studied Woodrow Wilson from the psychological point of view, and [Pg 250] that is my judgment now after having read and re-read Mr. White’s book.
It is by his possessions, not by his limitations, that Woodrow Wilson will be estimated. The campaign is on. It is not a noisy one. ”

“ There is a very holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in the affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can assist.
To Woodrow Wilson the business of government was a solemn thing, to which he gave every ounce of his energy and his great intellectual power. No President in the whole history of America ever carried weightier responsibilities than he. ”

“ Woodrow Wilson, however, is not to be assessed by his accomplishment. It is as prophet and not as man of action that he will be regarded by history. Like the prophets of old, like Luther or Mazzini, he lacked the capacity for carrying to practical success the ideal which he preached. But to assume that he must accordingly be adjudged a failure is to ignore the significance of the ideals to which he awakened the world. Much there was that was unattainable and intangible, but its value to mankind in the development of international relations may be inestimable. ”

“ This is what Woodrow Wilson gives. He comes as a leader, as a nucleating force, as a clear, rallying cry to the almost mystic passions that are peculiarly the dominant note of the day. He fits the need of the bloodless revolution as skin fits the hand, bringing purpose and courage to the struggle for nobler fulfilment of the hopes and aspirations that thrilled those who first sought refuge in the New World from the oppressions of the Old—the struggle for real democracy. ”

“ No man of all my acquaintance, with whom I have discussed life in all of its phases and tragedies, at least those tragedies that stalked in and out of the White House, was more responsive, more sympathetic, and more inclined to pity and help than Woodrow Wilson. ”

“ It was the first time Pearl had ever been in the cabin, and, although she maintained the graceful languor of her pose, lying back a little wearily in her chair, yet her narrow, gleaming eyes pierced every corner of the room, with avid eagerness absorbing the whole, and then returning for a closer and more penetrating study of details, as if demanding from this room where he lived and thought a comprehensive revelation of him, a key to that remote, uncharted self which still evaded her. ”

“ Wilson. If this seems strange to those who do not know him personally, I can only say that "Woodrow Wilson is made that way." He cannot dramatize himself and shrinks from attempts of others to dramatize him. "I will not write about myself," is his invariable retort to friends who urge him to publish his own story of the Paris Peace Conference. He craves the silence from others which he imposes upon himself. ”

“ As they sat through a dinner, not elaborate, but as prolonged as if it were composed of all the courses on the menu, Hepworth was struck by the positive quality of Fuschia's beauty. It was not always so, evidently. She was as changeful as the chameleon she had spoken of. In the garden that afternoon, in her white serge frock, she had at first impressed him as a pale, rather attractive looking young woman whose charm was greater than her prettiness; but viewed in the rose-colored lights, and across the pink blossoms on their small table, she was a very wonderful creature. ”

“ He peered into Frances's face. "Roses! Nay, a crown. The thistles sting and prickle; but they burst into queen's purple." He sighed again, and dejection fell over him. Then he turned his eyes upon the Black Pearl, holding her with his clear, intense gaze. "Repent ye!" he cried, with a shudder. "Repent ye! Now, now, lest ye be purified as by fire. Lest ye? Ye will. Your heart, which is as dead as Sodom and Gomorrah, will be swept by fire. Water cannot cleanse it. I have given you the Word from beyond the veil. Come, Ethel."
"Yes, Mr. Campbell." ”

“ THE KNOCKOUT BLOW.
WOODROW WILSON, AN ESTIMATE—HIS PLACE IN HISTORY—LAST OF GREAT TRIO—WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, WILSON—UPHOLDS DECENCY, HUMANITY, LIBERTY—RECAPITULATION OF YEAR 1918—CLOSING INCIDENTS OF WAR.
When sufficient years have elapsed for the forming of a correct perspective, when the dissolving elements of time have swept away misunderstandings and the influences engendered by party belief and politically former opinions, Woodrow Wilson is destined to occupy a place in the Temple of Fame that all Americans may well be proud of. ”

“ For there stood the Black Pearl alone, a man's coat buttoned across her bare chest, and beneath it the froth of her rose-colored silk petticoats. She stood nonchalantly enough, her head thrown back, her hands on her hips, surveying the group of men with a quick, disdainful smile, and then laughed insolently across them at Hanson.
"My Lord!" cried the sheriff, recovering himself, "how did you get here? Why, you just went out of the door."
"Gee! José dressed up in her clothes and made a getaway," called a shrill voice from the rear. ”

“ The Bryan-Joline crisis was safely passed. In the presence of the newspaper men at the banquet, Mr. Bryan put his arm around Mr. Wilson's shoulders in an affectionate way, and thus happily concluded the incident which for a time threatened to wreck a great enterprise.
On his return from Washington to Trenton, Governor Wilson told me that Mr. Bryan had bidden him not to worry about the publication of the Joline letter, saying: "I, of course, knew that you were not with me in my position on the currency," and Woodrow Wilson replied: "All I can say, Mr. Bryan, is that you are a great, big man." ”

“ For six long weary months now, the main and international fact America and the world have had to get up and face every morning is the way a man called Henry Cabot Lodge is being fooled by himself.
Ninety-nine million out of a hundred million people can see,—their very cats and dogs can see, and the little birds in the trees in Washington can see, that the main particular uncontrollable force that grips Henry Cabot Lodge in a vise all day every day for six months is his desire to make Woodrow Wilson ridiculous, to set Woodrow Wilson down hard in a lonely back seat of the World. ”

“ I ain't no thief. It's all of a piece with what the Padre used to tell me down in the desert, an' it's all lies. There ain't no justice." She dropped her head on her knees and the long, wet strands of her hair fell about her.
For a moment Frances turned her puzzled gaze down into the valley of clouds, then lifted them to the grey, bending, unsubstantial skies. Into her brooding eyes there flashed a sudden illumination like the gleam of fire on steel.
"Pearl," she cried, and her face was stern, "don't you say that! You're a living proof that there is justice. ”

“ There was a faint little wrinkle between Vivien Mayhew's eyes, a look of momentary and intense absorption, as if for one keen moment she sought intensely through the ordered, ticketed pigeonholes of her mind.
“Never heard of them.” She shook her head. “But they sound interesting, and as I never take my impressions from any one—do I, mother?—if I go out in your motor boat, Mr. Philip Wodeburn, you must promise to bring me back in time for luncheon that I may catch a glimpse of these new arrivals.” ”

“ Wodeburn.”
“Oh, we have had a spin!” cried Miss Mayhew, in her breezy way, as the two entered. “No wonder Mr. Wodeburn is pleased with his new boat. I believe she's the fastest thing going. She is built to fly. But the air on the water is very keen. 1 am as hungry as a hunter. Have you been here ever since we left, Miss O'Hara?”
“Yes,” replied Rose.
“And have the two new arrivals made their appearance yet?” asked Miss Mayhew, her quick, twinkling eyes alight with interest.
“I really do not know. I believe not,” said Rose, a little stiffly. ”

“ Wilson gradually grasped the fact that the War was a fight on behalf of the new world-democracy, a fight against European monarchical and aristocratic survivals. And thus he became the herald of the new Europe, the new world, the new life. An American Democrat, Lincoln’s successor and the spokesman of the American ideals of humanity, he became in this way the protector of European democracy and likewise the conscience of the world in the most fateful and tragical moment of the history of the modern age. ”

“ When, on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson entered the White House, the first Democratic president elected in twenty years, no one could have guessed the importance of the rôle which he was destined to play. While business men and industrial leaders bewailed the mischance that had brought into power a man whose attitude towards vested interests was reputed none too friendly, they looked upon him as a temporary inconvenience. Nor did the increasingly large body of independent voters, disgusted by the "stand-pattism" of the Republican machine, regard Wilson much more seriously ”

“ Hepworth had had his distinct niche in their homes and hearts for many years, and now as they gazed metaphorically at the empty space, it struck a chill to their affections.
Nevertheless they did not, could not fail to join in the little gasp of admiration which breathed through the church as the bride swept up the aisle on the arm of Mr. Willoughby Hewston, the well-known banker and intimate friend of the bride-groom. She had been stopping, it was understood, with Mrs. Wilstead, another friend of Hepworth's, for several weeks. ”