The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-12-01
TRUE AMERICANISM
Philadelphia North American.

We wish that every right minded
American citizen could find time to
read the series of public utterances
made by Governor Woodrow Wilson
during the few months that have
PASSED since he won his single handed
victory for popular government in re-
generated New jerseys memorable
session of the state legislature.
Entirely apart from politics, present
and future, we count it no eXaggera
ton to declare our opinion that no
other American has approached more
nearly to Jefferson and Lincoln in
wonderful facility and felicity of
stating the problems and their solu-
lions which touch real Americanism
from every angle.
The people will hear much privi-
lege- inspired censure of Woodrow
Wilson as a demagogue, an ambitious
self-seeker and all the like worno out
methods of attack. UNMARRIED from the
days OF the Gracchi to those of Roose
welt and La Toilette, whenever a for
midable advocate of popular rights and
exponent. of popular aspirations has
risen.
In advance of such certain misrep-
RESERVATIONS we have taken the liberty
of depicting Woodrow Wilson the man
and his ideals and purposes in his own
words. We have endeavored to dc
this by cropping scattered extracts
as follows;
we, the people, have not free ac-
cess enough to our own agents or dl-
rect enough control over them. There
are barriers to break down and pro
cesses to simplify, which we liberal
believe we know how to get at. We
mean, by one change or another, to
| make our government genuinely popu
lar and representative again"
I'VE are cutting away anomalies
not institutions. We are clearing
away the jungle and letting in the
pure light and air, not destroying the
wholesome forest or creating waste
places where there was productive
growth"
Such tasks are typically American.
| 1t has always been our privilege and
| our happy capacity to show how they
can be done-without revolution, with
| out strife or hatred or injustice, with
| out the necessity of drawing, in De
Tocqueville's memorable phrase, "a
| single tear or a single drop of blood
| from mankind
THE main object of what we are
| attempting, both in state and nation.
| is to establish a close connection, a
very sensitive connection, between the
| people and their governments. both in
| the states and in the nation in order
| that we may restore in such wise as
will satisfy US again the liberty and
| the opportunity in whose interests our
| governments were conceived
| But some men put false interpre-
| tation upon this There is a certa in
| unreasonable fear in the air, as if the
| process we have been going through
were, in some degree, vindictive: as if
| there had been bitter feeling in it and
the Intention to discredit those who
| OPP osed it,
| The crash of political organizat ions
has been only the crash of those that
did not comprehend, but resisted when
there was no right reason for resist
ing, and forgot that their very reason
for being was that they might serve
opinion and the movements of the peo-
pies will. If any system of political
practice have collapsed, only those
have collapsed which were unsuitable
to the objects which they protested &c
serve"
I'VE are no longer in the temper OF
attack. We are ready for remedy and
adjustment, and begin to see where &c
begin and in what direction to move
A promise of craftsmanship follows a
threat of revolution. There can be II.
installing this. Programs are taking