The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1919-05-31
Wilson Tells Burdens of Office
in Speech at Dinner to Bra
ziPs Executive.
TRIES TO give U. S. SPIRIT
Declares American Constitutions Put
So Many Duties Upon Chief His
Years of Office Are Weighted
With Anxiety.

full for one thing, Ii | may say so, 10
know that my presidency is not ahead
of me and that his presidency is
ahead of him." said President Wilson
in referring to DR.. Epitacio Pessoa,
president-elect of Brazil, at a dinner
given Doctor Pessoa by the pan-Amer-
lean peace delegation.
81 wish him." the president contin-
ued, 'every happiness and every sue
cess with the greatest earnestness,
and yet | cannot, if | may judge by
my own experience, expect for him a
very great exhilaration in the per-
Torrance of the duties of his office, be-
cause, after all, to be the head of an
American state is task of unrelieved
responsibility.
American constitutions, as a rule,
put so many du les of the highest sort
upon the president, and so much Of
the responsibility Of affairs of state
is conferred upon him that his years of
office are apt to be years a little
weighted with anxiety, little bur-
dened with the sense of the obligation
of speaking for his people, speaking
what they really think. and endeavor-
Ing to accomplish what they really de-
sire.
Thrills With Something New
"And nation looks to its president
to do that; and the comradeship of
an evening like this does not consist
merely Of the sense Of neighborhood.
We are neighbors. We have always
.syes frisi ssss Rss shat Is al I'D.
Something new has happened am
not sure that can put 1t into words,
but there has been added to the COM
mon principles which have united the
Americas time out Of mind feeling
that the world at large has accepted
those principles, that there has gone
thrill of hope and expectation through
out the nations of the world which
somehow seems to have it's source and
fountain in the things we always be-
lieved in 1t is as if the pure waters
of the fountains we had always drunk
from had now been put to the lips of
all peoples, and they have drunk and
were refreshed.
"And it Is a delightful thought to
believe that these are fountains which
sprang up out of the soil of the Amer
icas. I am not, Of course, suggesting
or believing that political liberty had
it's birth in the American hemisphere,
because of course it had not; but the
peculiar expression of it characteristic
of the modern time, that broad repub-
licanism, that genuine feeling and
practice of democracy that is becom-
ing Characteristic of the modern
world, did have it's origin In America,
and the response of the peoples of the
world to this new expression Is, we
may perhaps pride ourselves, a re-
Spouse to an American suggestion.
Americas Must Be United.
"If that is true we owe the world a
peculiar service. If we originated
great practices we must ourselves be
worthy of them. remember not long
ago attending a very interesting meet
ing which was held in the interest of
combining Christian missionary effort
throughout the world mean elimi-
mating the rivalry between churches
and agreeing that Christian mission
aries should not represent this, that
or the other church, but represent the
general Christian impulse and prin-
ciple of the world. l said | was thor
oughly in sympathy with the principle,
but that | hoped if it was adopted
the inhabitants of the heather
countries would not come to look at
us, because we were not ourselves
united, but divided; that while we
were asking them to unite we our
selves did not set the example.
'My moral from that recollection is
this: We, among other friendsSof lib
erty, are asking the world to unite In
the interest of brotherhood and mu-
tual service and the genuine advance
ment of individual and corporate lib
erty throughout the world, therefore
we must set the example.
81 will recall here to some Of you
an effort that / myself made some
years ago, soon after I assumed the
presidency of the United States, to do
that very thing. was urging other
states of America to unite with the
United States in doing something
which very closely resembled the for
nation of the present league Of ma
lions. | was ambitious to have the
Americas do the thing first and set
the example to the world of what we
are not about to realize I had q