Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1914-03-26

Washington March 20-W oodrow Will
son unbosomed himself to the members
Of the National Press club OF Washington
to-day, telling them in frank, converse
honal way how he felt as President of
the United States how difficult it was
Tor him to imagine himself as the chief
executive with the formal amenities OF
the position. and how he had struggled
TO be as free as the ordinary individual
without the restraints of his office,
1t was an intimate picture of Woodrow
Wilson The Man, drawn by himself, on
the occasion Of the house warming at
the Press clubs new quarters. The
President did not intend to have his re-
marks reported. but later at the request
of the club, the unusual speech was made
public. 1t was as follows:
II was Just thinking of my sense of
confusion of identity, sometimes, when /
read articles about myself. have never
read an article about myself in which I
recognized myself, and | have come to
have the impression that I must be some
kind OF a fraud, because | think a great
many of these articles are written in alb
solute good faith.
IT trenble to think of the variety and
It Is being borne in on me so that it may
change my very dispos!tion-that | am
a cold and removed person, who has a
thinking machine inside which he adjusts
10 the circumstances, which he does not
allow to be moved by any winds of affec-
ton or emotion of any kind, but turns like
a cold searchlght on anything that i:
presented to his attention and makes il
I NJ ha g.
tachablc apparatus inside me.
HARD TO RESTRAIN EMOTION
con the contrary, if I were to interpre
myself, | would say that my constan
embarrassment is TO restrain the emo
lions that are inside of me. You ma!
not believe it, but l sometimes feel Xix
a fire from far-from-extinct volcano
and If the lava does not seem to spill
over 1t is because you are not hig
enough 10 see into the basin and Sc
the caldron boil.
Because, truly, gentlemen, in the POSI-
ton which | now occupy there is n sor
of, | do not know how else to express
than 10 say, passionate sense of bein
connected with my fellow men in pecu
liar relationship of responsibility. No
merely the responsibility Of office bu
God knows there are enough things i
this world that need TO be corrected,
IT have mixed first and last, with a
sorts and conditions of men-there ar
mighty few kinds of men that have to b
described to me, and there are might
few kinds of experiences that have TO h
described to me-and when | think OF tn
number of men who are looking to m
as the representative of party with tn
hope for all varieties of salvage frol
the things they are struggling in II
| midst of, it makes me tremble. 1t max,
me tremble not only with a sense of m
own inadequacy and weakness but as
were shaken by the very things tn;
are shaking them, and if | seem circuu
spect, it is because I am so diligcntl
trying not to make any colossal blunder
If you just calculate the number of bluI
ders fellow can make in "A hours If
Is not careful and if he does not liste
more than he talks, YOU would see SOM
thing of the feeling that | have,
BORROWs BRAINS.
Il was amused the other day at a r
mark that Senator Newlands made.
was to deliver to Congress, some tt
days before | delivered it, and new
stop 'doctoring' things of that kind UNI
the day | have to deliver them.
when he heard it read to Congress,
said: i think 1t was better than 1t WI
when you read it to me- | said: Sen
tor, there is one thing which | do n
think you understand, l not only use ;
the brains | have but all ] can borro
and | have borrowed a lot since ! read
to you first
That, | dare say, is what gives t
impression Of circumspectness. a
listening. am diligently trying to CO
lect all the brains that are borrowab
in order that I am not 10 make mo
blunders than 1t IL Inevitable that m'
should make who has great limitatlo
on knowledge and capacity.
And the emotion of the thing is