New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-31
The Camera Test Applied TO a
Phrase NJ aker.


dent Wilson that his chief failing Is his propen-
sitv 10 make phrases do the work OF statesman
shin. His phrases are specious polShed anu
rbetoricanv comforting. But they do not bring
anv other kind of comfort They have no assocl-
,,ion with realities. and realities are what the
yorkaday world is interested in. The results
which Mr. Wilson attributes TO his craftsmanship
orc seldom visible to the naked eye. They cannot
be recorded by the camera.
A photograph which The Tribune published.
Yesterday on its first page alongside the report OF
the Presidents speech TO the American Electric
Railway Association illustrated more aptly than
ANYTHING else has done recently the unfortunate
dissertation between Mr.. Wilson's grace1ul
phrases and the rough realities of the actual stu
alton. While the President was congratulating
himself in Washington that result of his
policy Of harassing business, little as well as Dig
the country was ION the eve Of a new era OF en-
terprise and prosperity" photographs were oeihg
taken here showing the inauguration OF ne"
bread line in the very heart Of the Great "hlte
WAY section of the city. Never before had the
pressure of unemployment and want been brought
home so strikingy to the pleasure-lovng anu
pleasure-hunting frequenters of our great amuse-
ment district Washington saw picture OF what
the President had in mind when he applied with
unnecessary severity his ideas as to the regula-
ton of business New York saw picture OF the
actual results of that regulatve crusade.
Mr.. Wilson has been fond of saying that the
industrial depression Of the last two years has
been "merely psychological" 1t may have seemed
so to him. The wish to have his policies succeed
was father to the thought that they were already
succeeding and that only state of mind STOOD
between the country and real prosperity. But
the hundreds Of thousands of Americans VINO
were forced to pay the price Of his unsparlng at
tacks On business can pet no comfort cut Of the
theory that their misery is merely psychology
cal" The bread line is not psychological phe-
nomenon Neither is the surrendered savings
bank book or the rowing package OF pawn
brokers' tickets Men and women out of work
and on the verge of starvation cannot be hypno-
tized into forgetting their desperate plight by
assurances that their sufferingS had psychology
cal origin and that merely thinking right again
will summon back vanished era of prosperity.
II was the same case with the Presidents MeXi-
can policy. At one time he said he was interven-
ing in Mexico 'to serve mankind and TO help re-
store the land 10 the 50 per cent Of landess
Mexican poems Recently he has abandoned the
Serving mankind programme and substituted
one of keeping hands off while the Mexican people
are engaged in establishing their own form of
government" But all that any one but star
gazer can see in Mexico as the result Of those
policies is greater disorder than ever, more
rabid factionalsm and swifter descent into the
blackness of anarchy. camera to-day in Mex
leo would make as much havoc with Mr.. Wilson's
pbrases about the objects of his policy as the
bread line picture did with his phrases about the
imminence Of a new era of full wages and full
time employment.
With the ship purchase bill, too, it is the old
story over again. The President talks about lift
ing the burden Of excessive ocean freight rates
from the back Of the American farmer. But 1t
is the farmers enforced customer abroad who
paws those excessive freight rates. Instead of
offering a service which the country needs, the
President is trying to saddle the country with an
enterprise that will help nobody and can never
pay its way. When the camera finally passes
Judgment on the realities of the government ship
purchase scheme it will show that the net out
come Of this boosted relief enterprise has been
III, purchase Of lawsuit in the British courts
Of admiralty.
Mr.. Wilson's craftsmanship so far Is, IN fact,
little more than a dismal record of words not
matching facts of phrases killed by photographs.