Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-03-19
TWO YEARS OF WILSON.

The World.
On the fifteenth anniversary of Lin
coins second inaugural, Woodrow
Wilson completes half his President
ial term.
These two years of the Wilson ad-
ministration have helped to make
more than any other two years sinse
Lincoln. The coming two years of
the Wilson administration must in
evitably be the most momentous per-
old that this country has known since
the Civil War.
1t is fact of enormous Importance
that this crisis finds in the White
House a President who is completely
master of himself. Being master of
himself, he is master of his party
and of his administration.
There is no kitchen cabinet. There
are noback-stairs advisers. There
are no secret influences that pull
and sway the policies of the Execu-
tive. No underground wires run
from the White House into Wall Street
or into the headquarters of any pol
itical committee. Men may agree
with Mr.. Wilson or disagree with him
they may like him or they may dis
like him; but everybody knows that
he and he alone is President. Every
body knows that during the remaining
two years of his term he and he alone
will be President.
A very unusual man, meet to cope
with n very unusual situation in the
affairs of mankind-a President who
in all his Official relations displays
neither vanity nor resentment, nor
anger nor personal ambition. If he
has friends, their friendship counts
nothing for the affairs in the state.
If he has enemies, their enmity weighs
nothing in the balance of government
He seeks neither to reward the one
nor to punish the other.
SO evenly does he hold the scales
that the members of the Diplomatic
corps, with all their highly developed
facilities for obtaining information
have never been able to learn where
the Presidents personal sympathies
lie in the great conflict that is now
devastating Europe. Whatever his
invididual opinions may be, he has
smothered them in the responsibilities
Of his office.
At this period in their first term
most Presidents have been carefully
calculating their chances of renom-
nation and reelection. Nobody
knows whether Mr.. Wilson intends to
be candidate for reelection or not
Not member of the cadinet,not a
member of Congress, can say of his
own knowledge that the President
desires reelection or that he would
not refuse q denomination. What
all of them know is that the President
would not stoop from principle to
win either denomination or re-
election.
That is where his great strength
lies. That is where his great useful
ness lies in this crisis. 1t is easy to
rattle sabre. 1t is easy to make
the welkin ring. 1t is easy to be
spectacular and sensational and the
atrical. 1t is easy to be demagogue
1t is easy to juggle with the fate
of Nation when no man can foresee
what the next day will bring forth.
But it is not easy to be calm and
restrained and judicial. 1t is not
easy to face every responsibility with
out prejudice and without passion.
1t is not easy to hew straight to the
line of first principles, regardless
OF applause or censurc or praise or
denunciation. 1t is not easy to be
sane when the world has given itself
over to madness.
The enormous good fortune of the
people of the United States in the
storm and stress of these coming
years in that their Chief Magistrate
is sane-the sanest mind to-day that
is entrusted with the responsibilities
of government any where in civil
ization.