Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-12-31
FOUR MEN OF HUMBLE BIRTH
HOLD WORLD DESTINY
IN HANDS,
By WILLIAM G. SHEPPE ERD.

OuU u Ulnby law ONCE IL virginia,
out of cobbler's shop in Wales, out
of village doctors office in France
and from a farm on the island of
Sicily came the four men who, in the
grand old palace at Versailles, will
soon put the quietus on the divine
right of kings.
In 1856, three days after Christmas
boy named Thomas was born in the
plain home of Presbyterian parson
in Stanton, Va. When this boy was
years old, there was born in Paler-
mo, on the island of Sicily, 1900 miles
away, black-eyed Sicilian boy, into
the town of Palermo, on that July
day came Garibaldi in triumph, and
the farmer folk parents of the boy, in
honor Of the occasion, named their
son Victor, after the new Italian
king, whom Gaibaldi had helped to
seat.
Three years later still, when Thomas
was playing the games OF 7-year-o d
boys down in Virginia and when Vic
tor, at 3, spent most of his time romp.
ing on the little farm In Sicily, there
was born In the heart of the foggy,
land, boy named David. His home
was the uglieSt of the homes OF all
| the three. 1t was of red brick, two
stories high, small windows, facing a
busy stone sidewalk. Its rooms were
small and little adorned and not much
sprung from that dingy place.
There was one other boy to make
up the quartet. His name was George.
| He was a young medical student in
1 Nngh
David was born in England. He
thought all governments ought to be
republics, and by the time he was Is,
he came over to the United States to
| study the American republic, and, if
| possible, to make living over here
as doctor. He had been born in a
little village in France, in a doctors
| household.
While George was in New York al
most starving for lack of patients and
later, when he taught French in a
girls school in Stamford, Conn, little
Thomas, down in Virginia, at the age
of 10 years, had buckled down to his
studies, with the hope of being law
yer; Victor, at & was studying in a
school in faraway Palmermo, and Da-
vid at B, fatherlesS by this time, was
getting ready for life in the home of
his uncle, village shoemaker, in a
little town of Wales. The only CITY,
born boy Of the four, fate, when his
father died, took him to the simple
ity Of village life and saved him, per-
haps from the sidewalks.
The years Whirled on. George mar
ried an American girl and went back
to France. to write and teach and
doctor. Thomas went to a university
to study law. David, seven years
younger, spent his evenings and spare
time in his uncle'S shoe shop or in the
village blacksmith shop listening tC
his elders talk over the affairs of the
world.
Victor, with law as his vision,
crossed the famous straits of MesSina
from his island home and went tC
Naples to study in the law schoo
there.
In the SOS things began to happen
Down in Virginia, Thomas was adj
mitted to the bar. In old Wales, Da
vid, who, by this time, had learned TX
speak English, was admitted to prac
tice law in 1884, and in 1885, the black
eyed, hot-blooded Sicilian Victor re
ceived the documents that entitled
him to practice at the Italian bar.
George, in France, by this time haC
dropped medicine. Bolshevikism hat
arisen there in the form of the Com
mune, and he had fought it so des
perately that he had been sentenced
to death. He hated kings, aud IN
had been senter led to death. Fl
hated kings, and he also hated tn
autocracy of the mob. He fed from
Paris.
Soon they will sit at a peace tabl
together, the first peace table In al
human history from which divin
right kings are barred. The futur
and the welfare of the world lie il
their four pairs of hands, Their fuI
names are: George Clemenceau, pre-
mier of France; David Lloyd George
prime minister of England; Victo
Emanuel Orlando, premier of Italy
and Thomas Woodrow Wilson, presi
dent of the United States.