Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1916-11-17
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THE TEST OF WOODROW VIII.
SON.
(From The World \


Woodrow Wilson is the first Dem
ocratic President since Andrew Jack
son to succeed himself, the Harrison
Administration having interviewed be-
tween the first and second Cleveland
Administration.
What is more to the point. President
Wilson will enter his second term
with II clean slate. The old issues
are dead. The old political align
ments are broken. The President hns
no friends whom he is under obliga-
ton to reward. He has no enemies
whom he could by any possibility
wish to punish. He owes nothing to
any political organization, to any fac
ton, to my special interest, to any
group of voters.
No other President was ever so
free at the beginning of his second
term as Mr.. Wilson will be. He is
bound to no party prcjudices or ira
ditions or theories or passions; he is
chained to no precedent3 or policies
that he must seek to maintain in the
face of reason and truth.
The vote shows that the majority
OF the American people approve the
Wilson administration; but it also
shows that tho opposition vote de-
serves the Presidents most earnest
study and attention, for he can learn
much from it. Fortunately, he is n
man who is willing to learn.
We should say that the Presidents
reelection is national testimonial
to his purposes and his tendencies
rather than blanket Endorsement
of all his policies, for hundreds of
thousands of citizens voted for Mr..
Wilson who disagreed alphabetically
with him in many things that he
had done. But we believe that the
American people instinctivcly trust
n President whose mind is omen and
flexible, who has not closed his brain
to new ideas and who knows how to
adapt theories of government to the
actual conditions that confront gov
ernment That is why they have
trusted President Wilson throughout
this war and that is why they now
trust him to deal with the now prob
lens the country must meet when the
war comes to an end.
Most of the governments that have
been wrecked since the dawn of his
tory have been wrecked by men who
had rigid Interchangeable theories of
government and who tried to bend
the facts to suit their theories. 1t is
because Mr.. Wilson has the other
TYPED f mind that the American peo
pie have selected HMM preference
to Mr. Hughes to lead the United
States through this great crisis of
modern history.
Mr.. Wilson'S reelection does not
mean that the country has approx
ed of evrything that he has done. 1t
does not mean that the country in
dorses his appointments as whole
or his measures as whole or re-
CARDS him as infallible. 1t means that
the political intuition of the American
people has selected him rs the kind
Of man best fitted to cone with the
situation that now exists and the kind
of man most likely to measure up to
that situation.
President Wilson is none the worse
off because his majority in the Elec-
toral College is small, or because the
Democratic majority in the Senate
is small, OF because the House is
practically equally divided His OPP
portunities are the greater. When
the party conflicts with broad public
policy, he can the ensier maintain
broad public policy. He can substi-
tute nationalism for partyism, when
ever there is contest. and he can
thereby appeal for Republican sup
port on the same grounds on which
he appeals for Democratic support.
No man could desire the Presiden-
cy on better terms than it has come
to Mr.. Wilson. The elections have
made him the complete master of the
foreign policies of the country, sub
iect only to the veto of popular opin-
ion, and that is' true in larger sense
of the domestic policies. His second
Administration gives him chance
for leadership such rs comes to n
man only now and then in the course
of centuries.
1t is within the Presidents power
to shape the destiny of modern dem
ocracy if he but measures up to his
He can write the pref
ace to new volume of world history.
Everything depends upon himself
upon his wisdom, upon his vision, up
on his courage, upon his judgment of
men and measures and upon his skill
in taking advantage of circumstances
which neither he nor any other can
control. There are no influences with
out to pull him down. There are no
obstacles from within that he cannot
overcome.
Facing the responsibilities that con-
front him, President Wilson can af-
ford to waste no time in personal
citation over his victory at the polls.
Tuesdays election is call to SER
vice which must be answered in the
spirit in which it is made. Woodrow
Wilson is now approaching the decs-
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