Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1916-11-23
York, sir."

L
Which is without doubt much more
than the other youth said, because
he was older and Scotch-Irish. At any
rate he passed into the sacred bounds
as tom" Wilson, which became
Tommy" when he made the college
baseball team.
Thus the two candidates entered
college, one of them, Thomas Wood
row Wilson, at Davidson College, in
Mecklenburg County, North Caro-
lima, in 1873, at the age of seventeen;
the other at Madison, in 1876, three
years younger. Candidate Wilson, in
short, had a great advantage in years
when the two set out, all unwittingly,
on one Of the best Marathon races in
the history of America-a race to
end on Election Day, 1916. He was
oIder-six years older. He was
stronger. Had he possessed the
mental power of the other there
would have been no Candidate
Wilson would have been through col
| Iege and law school before Candidate
Hughes had got started from his
paternaI doorstep.
They started college with advan-
tages in many respects strangely sim
liar. Both had been born IN little
homes in side streets of small towns
which is the proper place for presi-
Dental candidates to be born. And
both were sons of ministers-one
Wilson, son of a Methodist minister
and Democrat" the other, son of a
journalist and Baptist minister,
Welshman who came to America in
the fifties-a thin, sparsely bearded,
fervent scholar of a man whose only
child inherited such of his gifts that
though promoted again and again
in the early schools, he nevertheless
complained again and again that he
"had to go over the same things in
school too much"
Whereas, Freshman Hughes at
the head Of his college path, was an
extremely precocious boy, with mental
rather than personal force, Freshman
Wilson was a true scion oftwo South
ern academies, a true grandson of
cold Doctor Woodrow, radical" and
a true minister's son of a stanch and
vigorous father with an Unsuitable
love for words and their exact mean
ings, instead Of the booming of old
time double-gesture oratory. Young
Tommy" in other words was any
thing but precocious mentally or de-
licate physically. He was rather an
outdoor boy ready to get con his
mark" |'to get set" and to be off at
the crack Of the pistol in any race for
anything he wanted.
"Tom" Wilson-he was ''Tom"
until he became 'Woodrow" by rails
ing mustache and side whiskers in
his senior year at Princeton-was not
the liberal of the two. "His chin was
too long" says one of his classmates.
Gle was too determined" And young
Hughes, perhaps because he was
a tall, soft-spoken, scholarly youth,
Welsh instead of Scotch-Irish, was
the liberal, if either man was.
Through college Hughes was the bet
ter scholar; Wilson was the man
with a mission. All they did illus
trates this contrast. The younger was
anxious to please his fellows. The
elder was anxious to please Woodrow
Wilson.
President Wilson, as previously
mentioned, was christened Thomas
Woodrow Wilson," but with years
came dignity, and he dropped his
first name, and was thereafter known
as Woodrow" the family name of
his scotch mother, "Jessie Woodrow"
from whom he inherited his long,
firm Underjaw, as well as other
Scotch characteristics. His name
was probably handicap in the cleo
ton, because the Democratic voter
abhors the dignity which doth beset
a king, and is inclined to use nick
names in marches or political meet
ings. For instance in the last cleo
ton the popular calls were FTerry,
Teddy! We want Teddy" or "Taft!
big Bill Taft" And either of these
slogans would have carried the man
into the presidents chair had it not
been a triangular fight. woody,
Woody! We want Woody" certainly
would not bring enthusiasm.
Mr. Wilson shines in the roll of
good husband, and he always treated
MS first wife's relations as he would
his own. It is related of him that
when her Uncle Tom came to visit
them, and put his shoes outside his
bedroom door that they should be
polished, the future president, reai-
zing that Bridget wouldn't and that
his wife shouldn't, did the work him
self, and did it well.
Their home life had been so ideal
that when it became known, within