The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-11-13
HALE ON WILSON
William Bayard Hale, Formerly of This City, Writes
Entertaining Life of Woodrow Wilson, Bobbs-
Merrill Companys Autumn Novel Crop.
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.


"For Beauty l am not star;
There are others handsomer, far;
! But my FACET don't mind it,
| For l am behind it;
| 'Tis the people in front that l jar!"
So wrote Woodrow Wilson in mo-
ment of Eight persiflage," for the
coming President of the United States
| is limerick writer of parts and a ia
nous raconteur.
All of which is told fascinatingly
enough by DR.. William Bayard Hale
in "Woodrow Wilson A Story of His
Life published by Doubleday, Page
& Co.
DR.. Hale is an entertaining writer.
And never more so than when writ
ing about Presidents of the Republic.
Instanced by "a Week in the White
House with Theodore Roosevelt"
which had a great sale at the time of
it's publication.
While Woodrow Wilson's life can
not be lined up with the thrillers it is
still an interesting study, in that it Is
typical of that of certain class, and
it's perusal on the printed page is
more or less absorbing.
Wilson is generally ranked as
Southerner
But if he can so be classed it is
rather by accident than ancestral
habitat since his birth in Staunton,
Virginia, followed a removal of his
clergyman father from Ohio, and his
continued residence in that section
was due to his fathers various cleri-
cal appointments in cities of the
South, mainly in Georgia and South
Carolina.
Wilson's paterna1 forebears were
Scotch Irish, his grandfather coming
to this country early in the last CEN
fury, the Wilson's living in Ohio and
Pennsylvania until the residence of
Woodrow Wilson's father in Virginia
and the 1atter's attachment to the
Presbyterian church, South.
That Woodrow Wilson did not learn
the alphabet until he was nine years
old goes to prove nothing in particu-
lar since it was merely an educational
experiment on the part of his mother
who was inimical to the English meth
had been a victim, a system of absorb
ton being substituted by her through
much reading aloud Of the classics to
the Wilson youngster.
Like Dickens, Wilson learned stem
ography in his college days recogniZ-
ing it's value in the classroom and as
conducting to clarity of thought, but
the record of his salad and college
days varies little from that of the av-
erage youth of democratic ambitions
but aristocratic manners from a fam
lily representative of intelligence and
culture but not wealth.
The most significant phase of his
college life was his interest in the
science of government as related to
the institutions of this country, Will
son, in his senior year at Princeton
having written an article, accepted by
a leading magazine of the day, called
Cabinet Government in the United
States" in which he denounces secre-
cy as 1.-The atmosphere in which all
corruption and evil flourishes"
Congress should legislate as if in
the presence of the whole country, in
open and free debate" says Wilson in
this article, and DR.. Hale adds these
words were written thirty-two years
ago"
To those who regard Woodrow Will
son as an impracticable theorist it
might be pointed out that for twelve
years he was the head of the depart
ment of Jurisprudence and politics in
Dy-;n hot hn wet
layman to become president of this
university.
Woodrow Wilson's fight with the
alumni of the University in his effort
to eliminate false social standards and
snobbishness by the Introduction of a
different housing and preceptorial sys-
tenn, and his failure, his election to
the governorship of New Jersey, and
his contest with the bosses of his own
party in that commonwealth, is fami-
liar to the public, but forms the most
absorbing part of DR.. Hale's narrative
at is surely an interesting prospect
held out by this taking of the center
of the stage of national politics by a
man made up of the combination of
qualities which Woodrow Wilson pos
sesses.
at is the combination of the gentle
man and scholar-and the practical
politician.
Imagine a type of culture in it's
| finest flower and then add to his en-
dowment, tact, method, efficiency,
t a shrewd knowledge of men, a sense
of humour, a passion for facts, zest
| for constructive work-and you begin
to get something like picture of the
remarkable man whose history, now
but entered upon, this biography has
so inadequately narrated, and whose
personality it has so imperfectIy pic
tured"
| Imagine Get Rich Quick Walling-
ford" ship-wrecked on a Prisoner of
Zenda shore and you have THE jim
co. by the versatile George Randolph
Chester, just published by the Bobbs-
Merrill Company.
In this Arcadia there are no tele-
phones, sewing-machines, airships or
corsets but there is a beautiful prin-
cess and a moldy king with a dog
cared prince-cousin or two in the Off
|