The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-17
PRESIDENT WILSON REVIEWS THE THREE
 YEARS HE HAS SPENT IN THE WHITE HOUSE
among ourselves. and the elements are here to be dealt with at first hand.
 STRAIN IS UNPRECEDENTED

among ourselves. and the elements are l here to be dealt with at first hand. STRAIN IS UNPRECEDENTED
 But when the fortunes of your own | country are, so to say. subject to the 1 incalculab1e winds of passion that Ire blowing through other parts of the world. then the strain is of singular | and unprecedented kind, because you | do not know by what turn of the | wheel of fortune the control of things | is going to be taken out of your hands i; | it makes no difference how deep the | passion of the nation lies, that passion | may be so overborne by the rush of for tune in circumstances like those which | now exist that you feel the sort of l had almost said resentment-that a man feels when his own affairs are | not within his own hands. You can l ina zine the strain upon the feelings of | any man who is trying to interpret the | spirit of his country when he feels that | that spirit cannot have its own way be- l yond a certain point. And one of the greatest points of strain upon me, if | may be permitted to point it out, was | this:
 There are two reasons why the chief | wish of America is for peace. One is l that they love peace and have nothing 1 to do with the present quarrel; and the Ouner IS that they DelleVe the present | quarrel has carried those engaged in it 1 so far that they cannot be held to ordi- nary standards of responsibility, and | that, therefore. as some men have ex- pressed it to me; since the rest of the world is mad. why should we not sim l ply refuse to have anything to do with l the rest of the world in the ordinary channels of action? Why not let the storm pass, and then, when it is all over have the reckoningS?
 "Knowing that from both the two points of view the passion of America was for peace, I was, nevertheless, aware that America is one of the na tions of the world. not only but one of the chief nations of the world, a nation that grows more and more powerful almost inspite of herself; that grows morally more and more influential even when she is not aware of it. and that if she is to play the part which she most covets, it is necessary that she should act more or less from the point of view of the rest of the world. If cannot retain my moral influence over man except by occasionally knock ing him down. if that is the only basis
 upon which he will respect me, then for
 the sake of his soul I have got oc-
 casionally to knock him down.
 USE FORCE OCCASIONALLY
 You know how we have read in
 isn't it Ralph Connors stories of vest
 ern life in Canada?-that all his sky
 pilots are ready for a fracas at any
 time and how the ultimate salvation of
 the souls of their parishioners depends
 upon their using their fists occasion
 ally. If a man will not listen to you
 quietly in seat. sit on his neck and
 make him listen; just as I have always
 maintained, particularly in view of cer-
 tain experiences of mine. that the
 shortest road to boys moral sense is
 through his cuticle. There is d direct
 and, if may be permitted the pun, a
 Fundamental connection between the
 surface of his skin and his moral con
 sciousness. You arrest his attention
 first in that way and then get the mor-
 al lesson conveyed to him in milder
 ways that, if he were grown up, would
 be the only ways you would use.
 "So, I say that I have been aware
 that in order to do the very thing that
 we are proudest of the ability to do,
 there might come a time when we
 would have to do it in way that we
 would prefer not to do 1t: and the great
 burden on my spirits. gentlemen, has
 been that it has been up to me to choose
 when that time came. Can you imag-
 inc thing more calculated to keep a
 man awake at nights than that? Be-
 cause. just because. did not feel that