The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-18
(By pr. George Dorsey.)

President Wilson is the first real Progressive leader-using that term in it's modern sense-that America has produced" declared Miss Ida M. Tarbell in an interview in which she all in her power to insure the re-elec- tton of President Wilson.
 The noted author and editor, who las earned worldwide recognition as one of Amertca's most intellectual women, was an ardent worker in the Progressive cause in 1912. She is still a Progrossive in thought and in ac- tion That is why she is for Will son.
 ; This interview is in her own words: it requires no quotation marks and no interpretations, for Miss TarbeH has read the manuscript and approved it, as follows:
 The great trouble with MT. Roose- welt is his out-of- -dateness. He does not and never has really understood what the Progressives were fussing about and there has never been one of them who could tell him so that he can get the idea. Many of them recognized this, but they wanted the asset of his extraordinary personal ity They've got what was inevitable for their compromise.
 < President Wilson differs from MT. Roosevelt in his whole conception of the function of the politician. Ac- cording to the theory which he seems tp be trying to put into practice, the President should represent the com binedr efficiency and intelligence of the people and should try to- make effective the collective desires of the people. The people delegate leader ship to their presidentAhe isa their, general manager. They naturally ex- pect him to work for them. That means among other things to discover what is in their mind-not the Told notions and conceptions merely, but the look into the future which is in their minds He must find that out and express it for them, first in words and then in practice. That is the highest business of the leader of people-to find out just how long an upward step a people are ready for, and thenS fire them with courage to take the step. Of course, this must be done along legitimate constitution al lines. It must be done without the destruction of what has been gained in the past and with as little shock to the activities of a country as pos sible.
 President Wilson has never failed in studying any of the many serious and widely separated problems which the last four years have thrust upon him-many of them utterly unlocked for by anybody in the country. things that could not have been foreseen- to get what illumination he could from the light of the future. He seems to have asked himself what would be done about this if the hig- est and finest ideals in the mind of genuinely civilized and \christianized men and women could be carried out. What would real citizen of the world-a christian and a gentleman do in this case? And having an- swered the question as best he could he has deliberately gone about the difficult task of finding how much re- sponse he,could get from the Ameri- can people to a civilized and chris tiandzed appeal. He has set them looking into their { own minds and hearts in an extraordinary way and has wrenched from many of them a reluctant confession of their back wardnes in thrift and Nh practice. That Is the only real Progressive leadership-to make people see and feel the future and to buoy them to the point where they are willing to break with the world as it is and try to put a little more of the future into practice.
 That isi what he did in keeping us out of the war. I rather think the time will come when most Americans who are now cursing him for dishon- ering us will realize that the whole world has been set forward in its international thought and practice by what he has done to civilization for us. One gets a notion of what it means to be out of this war when he considers what it would have meant for us to have plunged in. We were the only powerful centers of control left in the neutral world. Had we lost that control the whole earth, civ dhzed and uncivilized, would have in- evitably-so it seems to me-have been dragged in and we would have lad welter of destruction. Nothing but exhaustion would ever have ended the fray. Civilization would have been forced to begin over again Keep ing us out of the war in the way he has means just this, that when at last peace comes, readjustment will have to be made along new advanced lines of thought put on higher plane of civilization than ever before The world will owe this largely to Presi- >dent Wilson's unbreakable patience, his eternal perseverance, lMs constant adherence to the belief in the eternal efficacy of peace, his refusal to be stampeded, bullied, scolded or brow beaten into war. He has gained a tremendous victory-a diplomatic vic tory as successful as it has been prac- tical--as far-reaching in its conse- quences as it has been effective.
 And do you realize that President Wilson is>the only man in the world who has gotten results from Germany? Who made the Kaiser give up the biggest asset in his campaign of frightfulness? That was a big vic tory for diplomacy and a great gain for civilizatio Never again will the