Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1919-04-25

! by Mcssrs. Henry Holt and Company
after its very successful publication in
England. OF all contemporary at
te.npts TO analyzc the presidents ca
reer and place in history, it is, per-
maps, the most interesting. because it
comes from an outsider ~ho is pre-
sumably unswaycd by c'e political
bias which is apt 70 operate in the
case Of an American writing of Pres
ident Wilson.
AS Literary Man.
With the cultivated English crit
les true appreciation Of literary
achievement. Mr. Archer dwells at
length on Wilson as q literary man
side Of our president which we in
America are apt to overlook. 81 have
not" he says, Attempted any criti-
cal estimate OF President Wilson's
place in American literature My OBJ
ject has been simply to show that
whatever else he may be, he is a man
of letters TO the finger tips-a man
stepped in literary trsditions, and
possessed of fine literary gifts. he
can make political science readable
to the layman, and he can make his
tory fascinating without importing to
it the cheap over-coloring OF fiction or
the hectic fervor fopxzfffnifhff
hectic fervor Of partisarship. This
aspect OF his genius is not sufficiently
recognized, either here or in his own
country His administrative achieve
mcnis, both in education and politics.
and his facrre as a statesman have
eclipsed his repute as an author. But
there can be little doubt that if he
had not abandoned the contemplative
for the active life he would have tax
Ell a high place among contemporary
writers of the English language; and
even as it is it ought not TO be for
gotten that this great president is at
the same time IN accomplished and
attractive man of letters"
The Mexican Question. :.
Nothing in President Wilson's ca
reer," says Mr.. Archer further on in
his book, has been more bitterly
criticised both in his own country
and abroad, than his treatment OF the
Mexican problem. 1t is probable that
when the time for dispassiona:e judg-
ment arrives. nothing will be found
to give clearer evidence of his
strength of character and his polit-
cal insight"
What was the alternative TO Pres
idcnt Wilson'S policy? II could only
have been in the first place great
and bloody war All parties in Mexi-
co.'s was clear from the dcclara-
tions Of Madero and the action of
Carranza-woul: nave been common
cause against an invader and the Uni
ted States would have had on their
hands problem vaster and more diff
ficult than that which Britain encoun.
tered in South Africa. In the second
place, this war would have worn the
appearance, mt any rate, Of war of
conquest, and would have alicnatcd
once for all the other Spanish meri-
can state, already sufficiently prone
10 question the Observation-Disclosures Of
their great neighbor Of the north. In
the third place. the utmost success
attainnhle would have left the United
States saddled with the charge of a
vassal republic, resentful, turbulent.
entirely indisposcd to accept and
profit by the tutelagc Of It's CONQUER
or. 1t would have had to be controll-
ed. for "A long time alta any rate. by
American proconsuls, who, if they
acted honestly in the interests OF the
people, could not possibly have revived
the system of cXnloitation which had
flourished under Diaz. and which was
the very thing that those who clam
ored for intervention wee longing to-
see revived"
eprof-att-rohavcahl etaoi ctacin nnnn
I'm conjecture in which the on
" choice lies, not between good and
evil, but between two degrees of i'll.
and wise course and the brave course
is TO choose sem tame and unheroic
one. And TO persist in that choice in
the fact of bitter, violent and contemp-
tuous criticism may well be the truly
heroic part to play"
Into the War.
After Il careful analysis of the diff
cult position in which America was
l''HNN' WIN tie OF the
world war acnd the provocations
which Germany gave us, +. Archer
says of President Wilson's final de-
cision: "He carried his country into
the war because Germany had
thrown to the winds that last sem
blance of regard for international
law or humanity, and because he saw
that n world dominated by the spirit
OF German autocracy was an impos-
sible world for seIf-respccting and
seif governing people to live in. |
Until it was absolutely clear that the
very existence of democracy was Mt /
stake, he did not think that he had
the right, even if he had the power,
to involve his country in the gigantic
evils Of war. He had borne injury
and covert insult while that seemed
tnelesscr of two evils; but when
open insult to the United States was
combined with no less cnyical dis |
avowal of all restraint in the pursuit