The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1919-02-27
FRANCE HAS LOST FAITH IN
PRESIDENT WILSON.

1hS WiiOAiS OoeiiOiAoy
on the war from it's inception to its
close, was Frank H. Simonds of New
York, who contributed his opinion
daily to a group of leading metropoli-
tan newspapers.
Although not military man, Mr..
Simonds had for years made a close
study of the countries involved; h,
was thoroughly familiar with their
ideals; their development along social,
business and military lines. In the
early spring of 1918, particularly, he
pointed out the grave dangers whic
confronted the Allies in logical
manner not arrived at by any other
war correspondent. Mr.. Simonds is
not a sensationalist; he deals in cold
hard facts.
This trained and expert mind is
now covering the Versailles Peace
conference, and his Tuesdays dispatch
states coldly and bluntly that the
French people have lost faith Ii
President Wilson.
France came to the peace table I'M
mediately following four and one-half
years of warfare; 100000 of her
population had been destroyed and her
country devastated. Through their
premier, Mr.. Clemenceau, they asked
for reparation and guarantees a per-
fectly reasonable request. Under
similar conditions Americans would
demand as much.
The French people welcomed the
President of the United States most
cordially-hoping and believing that
he would insist upon the justice of
their contentious. Instead Of that he
has dealt in abstract generalities,
while Premier Clemenceau has rightly
insisted upon concrete and certain rep
aration for Hun brutality.
In his lofty ideals the President has
apparently been unable to sense the
justice to which the French people
are entitled, or possibly he may feel
that the French are no more fit to
govern themselves than apparently is
his own country, America.
Mr.. Simonds covers the case so
clearly that the Herald publishes
herewith short excerpts from his story
of Tuesday:
"When France as whole asked Mr..
Wilson to go and see her devastated
regions that he might understand
her heart, he returned cold and
unequivocal negative, and do not
think that any single act of any man
ever carried with it profounder dis
appointment than Mr.. Wilson's re-
fusal to go to the northern regions
and see what the Boche had done.
"And we have had, week after week,
slow but sure change in French
emotion with respect to the Presi-
dent: He was hailed by the little peo-
pie of France as savior. He was
hailed as man who came from an
other world to deliver France and
other peoples of the world from the
shadow of tragedy which had been,
and little by little his course here
had the effect at least of creating the
impression that he cared nothing for
the life or death of France, that he
was not concerned with those things
which the tragic years of war had
burned into the soul of every French
man and woman.
81 do not think it is possible accu-
rately to represent how profound was
the disappointment of France at this
course of the American President. A
sense first of desertion and then of
utter isolation crept into the French
heart, as more and more the Ameri-
can attitude towards France passed
from mere coldness with respect oil
French necessities to open criticism
and hardly concealed suspicion. / do
not think one would exaggerate by
saying that three months ago France
believed the war won, and today, as
a result of what has occurred here
in the peace conference, there is
amounting to real terror
lest the war shall be lost after all,
and France left alone again across
the pathway of Germany increased
in power and population by the last
war.
Before the assassin's bullet struck
it's distinguished mark, there was
perhaps certain amount of feeling
in France that some portion of the
responsibility for the division be-
tween America and France might +
to French leadership. There
was a feeling that no sacrifice could
be too great to assure, if possible,
the support of America for France.
81 am not sure that the result OF this
might not have been to bring about
a change in the French cabinet, al.
though all France remains forever
grateful to the leader who was the
symbol of victory, who made war in
cessantly while others thought OF
capitulatiop. But all that is over
now. The first emotion in France
when it became known that Clemen-
ceau had been struck down was to