Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-05-19
WILSON SAYS BLOW is
OFTEN GOOD FOR SOUL

be sure that had the right elements OF in
formation by which to interpret truly?
What We talking about is largely
spiritual You say all the people out my
well that you have not talked with all the
people ont your way. ! find this out again and
again And so you taken by surprise. The
people OF the United States are not asking any
hody's leave to do their own thinking, and are
not asking anybody to tip them off what they
ought to think They are thinking for them
selves every rnap for biyosaIF. AMI Won do not
know, and the worst of it is, since the respon-
Utility is mine, / do not know what they are
thinking about. / have the most I'M, crfect
means Of finding out and vet I have got TO act
as if know. That is the burden of 1T, and
] tell YOU. gentlemen, it is pretty serious
burden, particularly If you look upon the office
as do-that { am not put here to do what
II please. If i were. it would have been very
much more interesting than it has been. l am
put here TO interpret, TO register, to suggest
and, more than that, and much greater than
that, to be suggested to.
Now, that is where the experience that |
forecast has differed from the experience that
nave had. In domestic matters l think / can
in most cases come pretty near a guess where
the thought OF America is going, but in foreign
affairs the chief element is where action Is
going on IN other quarters of the world and
not where thought is going in the United States.
neI'Icte' nave several times TAKEN Tue iIU-
erty OF urging upon you gentlemen not your
selves to know than the state department
knows about foreign affairs.
Some of you have shown a singular range
or omniscience, and certain things have been
reported understood in administrative cir
Giles which / never heard of until / read the
prise in regard to decisions which said to
be my own, and this gives me uncomforta-
bic feeling that some providence is at work
with which | have had no cOmmunica hon at
all.
Nov, that is pretty dangerous, gentlemen,
because 1T happens that remarks start fires.
There is finder lying everywhere, not only on
the other side of the water, but on this side of
the water, and man that spreads sparks may
worse than burning town on the Mexican
border. Thoughts may be bandits. Thoughts
may be raiders. Thoughts may be invaders.
Thoughts may be disturbers of international
peace; and when you reflect upon the impOT-
lance of this country keeping out of the pres
emit war, you will know what tremendous Gle
ments we are all dealing with. We are all
in the same boat If somebody does not keep
the processes of peace going, il somebody does
impartial judgment and suggestion is the
world TO be aided to solution when the whole
thing is war? If you are in a conference in
which you know nobody is disinterested, how
you going to make a plan? 1 tell YOU
this, gentlemen, the only thing that saves the
world is the little handful of dsinterested men
that are in it.
NOW, 1 have found few disinterested
men. l wish had found more. / name
two or three men with whom l have conferred
again and again and again, and / have never
caught them by inadvertence thinking about
themselves for their own interests, and l tie
70 those men as you would tie to an anchor.
l tie to them as you would tie TO the voices of
conscience # you could be sure that you always
heard them. Men who have no axes TO grind:
give their lives for it; willing to die in OBJ
security If only they might serve! Those are
the men, and nations like those men are the
nations that are going to serve the world and
save 1t. There neves a time in the his
tory of the world when character Just sheer
character all by itself. told more than IL does
now. A friend Of mine says that every msn
who takes office in Washington either grows
or swells. and when I give a man office
( mot oh aim rnf IIp 20 10th hz f1
swelling or growing. The mischief of it rs
that when they swell they do not swell enough
to burst St. If they would only swell to the
the gases out 1t would be great delight. 1
do not know any pastime that would be more
diverting, except that the gases are probably
poisonous that would have to stand
from under. But the men who grow, the men
who think better a year after they are put in
office than they thought when they were. put
in office the balance wheel of the whole
| thing. They are the ballast that enables the
craft to carry sail and to make port in the
long run. matter what the weather is.
80 ] have come willing to make this MARIA
tive of experience to you. have come through
the fire since I talked to you last. Whether
the metal is purer than ii was God only knows:
but the fire has been there. the fire has ppne-
trated every part Of it, and II ! may believe
my own thoughts, ] have less partisan feeling.
more Impotence of party maneuver more
thusasm for the right thing, matter whom
II hurts. than I had before I'm my life.
And l have something that IL is doubt dan
gerous TO have hut that I cannot help having.
have profound intellectual contempt for
men who cannot the signs of the times.
have to deal with some men who know
more of the modern processes of politics than
If they were living In the eighteenth century,
and for them l have a profound and comprehen-
size intellectual contempt. They are blind. They
hOpelessly blind; and the worst of it is
have to spend hours of my time talking TO them
when / know before I start much after
have finished that il is absolutely useless to
talk to them. / am talking in vacuo.
THE business of every of us. gentle
men. is to realize that If correspondents
of papers who have not yet heard of modern
times ought TO send them many init
nations OF modern movements they are will
ing to print. There is a smile that was used by
very interesting English writer that has been
much In my mind. Like myself, he had often
been urrrd not 10 try to change so many things.
al remember when ! was president OF uni
versity man said TO me. Good heavens man,