The sun., 1919-09-03
The Presidents Swing Around the
Circle and the Fundamental Error
Of HIS Political Philosophy.

ING ETesluouts oWthB hfOuhu shc
Circle and the Fundamental Error
Of His Political Philosophy.
President WILSON'S extensive and
expensive speech making journey to
the Pacific and back begins to-day.
The alert minds of several of THE
Suns correspondents have, already
detected the obvious inconsistency of
his saying and his doing. The Presi-
dent is now urging the laboring men
of the United States to stay on their
jobs for the sake of the country at
this critical juncture In our economic
and Industrial experience. Not very
long ago he was urging the Congress
to forego its intended recess and to
stay on its job for the same SUI
premely important reason. There are
many millions of Americans who can
not understand why he, elected to
perform at Washington certain speci-
fically defined executive duties, and
sworn by his oath of Office to perform
them as the Constitution prescribes
and, moreover, lately returned from
a self-determined absence from his
post Of duty ON rainbow chasing ex-
cursion into the complexities of Eu-
ropes political affairs, should decline
to stay on his own job for the sake
of the country at this same critical
juncture in its domestic affairs. We
do not believe that these minds which
cannot comprehend the workings OF
Mr.. WILSON'S mind in this matter are
either dense or disrespectfully inclined
toward the President.
There are several possible explana-
tons, of course. One is that the
President is so thoroughly convinced
of the sacrosanct character of the
covenant which he has devised for the
reorganization of world politics, and
so completely possessed or obsessed
with the sense of personal paternity
and personal responsibility for it, that
he Is willing to sacrifice all other
interests to the desperate hope of
stemming the adverse tide of healthy
natiOnalism and sound Americanism
which has been setting steadily
against him and his project ever since
he quit the Paris Conference. The
SUN has already pointed out the al
most grotesque fallacy involved IN
this process of reasoning. 1t is this.
The President, having conceived or
constructed certain ideals" of his
own respecting world government and
our relation to it, went abroad on his
own motion and mistakenly repre-
scented those ideals of his as the ideals
of the American people. He told Eu-
rope that he had mandate from the
people who had sent him to give prac-
teal effect to these ideals; that he
would not dare go home to America
with his mission unfulfilled. By trad
ing and barter and the abandonment
of distinctly proclaimed principles in
matters yielding material advantage
to the foreign statesmen with whom
he was matching minds he succeeded
in some degree in his purpose. Then
he came back and told his fellow
countrymen that 1t would break the
heart of Europe If his covenant
was rejected here. When this plea
seemed likely to be unavailing he de-
clared his intention of spending a
month away from his post of duty In
Q personal campaign to persuade
America to accept the very same
jdes1s which he had presented to Eu-
rope, not as his ideals, but as the
ideals Of America. Surely, there has
been no more peculiar example of this
method of promotion since Mr.. Fac
ing BOth-Ways was vocally active.
Another theory Of the stumping ex-
petition which begins to-day is that
even the Presidents fervor for the
League of Nations. has recently be-
come secondary in political value, in
the estimate of his characteristic OPP
portunism, TO new Issue which he
styles "the democratlzation of labor"
whatever that phrase may really
mean He ioid his fellow c0untrymen
in his Labor Day message that he
had In view plan for putting the
whole question Of wages upon another
footing" 1t Is quite possible that the
new issue, thus impressively II
vaguely indicated, may occupy, before
he gets far with it, the foremost place
in his forensic programme; al
though, II that shall be the case, 1t is
reasonably certain to be interviewer
or intertwined with the earlier issue
In his rhetorical outglvlngs between