Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1919-05-20
AMERICANS NOT
DOLLAR CHASERS
President Tells French U. S. Has
High Sense of Humanity
and Justice.
GERMAN IDEA IS ALL WRONG
Wilson Says Freedom of Speech Is
Greatest Safety Because When a
Man Is a Fool Best Thing Is
to Let him Advertise Fact.

Paris, May 14.-President Wilson,
in his address to the French Academy,
of Moral and Political Sciences, Wig
Orously denied that the American
people were largely materialists or.
dollar worshipers.
Il have had in recent months one.
very deep sense of privilege" the
president said. 81 have been keenly
aware that there have been times when
the peoples of Europe have not under
stood the people of the United States.
We have been too often supposed to
have been devoted chiefly if not en-
tirely to material enterprises We have
been supposed, in the common phrase,
to worship the almighty dollar.
I'VE have accumulated wealth, we
have devoted ourselves to material en-
terprises with extraordinary success,
~but there has underlain all of that,
all the time, a common sense of hui
mainly and a common sympathy with
the high principles of justice which
has never grown dim in the field even
of enterprise, and it has been my
very great joy in these recent months
TO interpret the people of the United
States to the people of the world.
Il have not done more, l have not
uttered in my public capacity my own
private thoughts. / have uttered what
| have known to be the thoughts of
the great people whom l represent.
I fhn I,n+
been stored up in their hearts and
purpose from the time of our birth
as a nation"
President Wilson alluded to his
studies in the field of political science
and the attempts he had made 'to
thought of nation, the attitude of q
people toward public affairs" He con-
tinued:
"a great many of my colleagues in
American university life got their
training, even in political science, as
so many men in civil circles did, in
German universities. / have been
obliged at various times to read
great deal of bad German, difficult
German, awkward German, and l
have been aware that the thought was
as awkward as the phrases, that the
miscOnceptiOn of the state and of the
political life of peoples. And it has
been a portion of my effort to dis
engage the thought of American uni
versity teachers from the misguided
instruction which they had received
on this side of the sea. Their Ameri-
can spirit anticipated most of them,
as matter of course, but the form
of thought sometimes miSled them.
They speak too often of state as a
thing which would ignore the individ-
ual, as thing which was privileged
to dominate the fortune of men by a
sort of inherent and sacred author
ity.
'NOw as an utter democrat, / have
never been able to accept that view of
the state. My view of the state is
that it must stop and listen to what /
/ have to say, no matter how humble
l am, and that each man has the
r1gnC TO nave MS voice neaFu anu MS
counsel needed in so far as it is
worthy of him.
Il have always been among thOse
who believe that the greatest freedom
of speech is the greatest safety, be-
cause if a man is a fool, the best
thing to do is to encourage him to
advertise the fact by speaking. 1t
cannot be so easily discovered if you
allow him to remain silent and look
wise, but if you let him speak the
secret is out and the world knows
that he is fool.
$50 it is by exposure of folly that
it is defeated; not by the seclusion
of folly, and in this free air of free
speech men get into that sort of COM
with one another, which
constitutes. the basis of all common
achievement. France, through many
vicissitudes, and through many bitter
experiences, found the way to this
sort of freedom, and now she stands
at the front of the world as the rep
resentative of constitutional liberty"