Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-04
THE PRESIDENCY is THE MOST
PlTILESS OFFICE ON EARTH
And Mr., Wilson. Victim Of It's Grueling
Strain, Piled Up It's Burdens With
His Own Single. Handed, Ex.
elusive Endeavors

GIT is not surprising that the Presi.
dent has broken down"
The phrase or its equivalent is on the
lips or in the minds of millions of Ameri-
cans. Their intent is sympathetic. And
yet, however, unconsciously, their attitude
is cruel. 1t is precisely the same attitude
which would be reflected throughout the
land in the case of the nervous exhaus-
tion of any President of whatever party.
The thoughtlessness lies in the lack of
astonishment at a situation resulting
from the abnormal eXactions of the ma
tion'S highest Office. The public is not
surprised. but by all the tenets of ordi-
nary morality it ought to be-
That the elected rulers of the United
States, whoever they may be, labor
under prodigious burdens, that the
mere performance of their duties-aside
from any excess of endeavors, as in Mr.
Wilson'S case--involves the most intense
physical and nervous strain is fact re-
ceved as a commonplace.
81 wouldn't be the President" pro-
claims the average citizen, and he means
it, "for all the glory on EARTH He has
no hesitation, however, in accepting
state of affairs requiring his President
to be a superman, and when weakness
and WEAKNESS result the verdict is the
conventional "of course" A republic
may not always be ungratefu, but in the
American manifestation it is often incon-
sderate.
Aside from the inextingushable Mr..
Taft and John Quincy Adams, whose in
tellectuality saved him from being
prey to emotions, most of our full-telm
Presidents have departed from Office
broken men. If they were not, according
to medical opinion, actually i'll, it is un-
deniabe that their pristine forcefulness,
mental virility and general zest of life
were seriously dissipated by the grueing
years of office.
The problem of the disposition of our
eXPresdents has been, on the whole,
more theoretical than real. The ranks of
those living statesmen who held the most
exalted American public post have sell
dom been numerically embarrassing.
II is another cavalierly recognized con-
vention that ex-Presidents do not die of
old age. Survivors for any length of
time as, for example, jefferson and John
Adams, have become impotent figures in
the national life, aloof and isolated relics
of the past.
Grover Cleveland's authority as a
spokesman vanished as he left the White
House. Washington had but two years
Of peace and quiet at Mt. Vernon, fol-
lowing his exit from the executive man
sion in Philadelphia in 1897. Grant was
disillusoned and tired by his presidential
duties. Even the fiery Jackson was an
ex-President for but seven years.
The activity of Theodore Roosevelt,
subsequent to his last term, is only super
ficially an exception. His warmest cham
pions cannot consistently claim that the
splendor of his mentality, the driving en-
ergy of his character and all the fine
attributes which make him so impressive
figure in our history We're displayed to
the full after he had gone through the
presidential mill. Too often in that later
period vehement extravaganza replaced
the firm and mastery judgment which
preserves his fame.
The pitiful truth is that American
Presidents burn themselves out. The
office is mercless, the public far too com
placent.
AS If one were not enough, Woodrow
Wilson has been serving two taskmas-
ters. The first was the exacting public,
the other his exacting self. Upon the
apparent assumption that his own
shoulders were sufficiently sturdy to bear
the weight which terrific and unprece-
dented events placed there, the President
voluntarily took responsibilities which
other men could have shared with him.
Perhaps his university experience had
made him unduly wary of action by un-
wieldy committees. At any rate he has
been firm believer in the philosophy of
"if you want thing done do it your
self"
1t is conceivable that had the world
continued to spin at the ordinary pace
which characterized it at the beginning of
the century Mr.. Wilson, with his bril-
liant gifts and sterling powers of states
manship, might have triumphed phys
ically over the formidable regulation de,
mands of the presidency. But it was his
fate to govern in cataclysmc times.
Not since Lincoln has any President
been compelled to combat such a deluge
of difficulties as rushed down upon Mr..
Wilson. The Mexican problem, complex
and battling, was an inheritance from
previous administration. Events over
which neither the President nor the
American people had any control multi
piled its intricaces.
The great war was not simply an eight
cen months strain 1t bore upon Mr..
Wilson with almost insuperable pressure
from the first of August, 1914, until its
close. The peace negotiations and the
protracted political drama over ratifica-
tion were eliminating blows upon an in
dividuality which-to speak plainly
sought alone to accomplish too much