The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-12-08
THE PRESIDENTS
 LAST MESSAGE

THosh WHO expected the dom q 1 inant note of the Presidents annual message to Congress to be a war-cry urging the fight for the League have been disappointed. Neither have those who looked for document filled with biting sarcasm for the opponents who thwarted his efforts been gratfied, for there is in it no call to battle. no song of victory. nor no denunciation. / A great figure movng off the stage, who has upheld a great cause. ana been stricken while so doing, pauses for an instant to point out to his countrymen what he considers the vital principle by which, and oy which alone. the affairs of rot only this nation, but of the world. can be ordered alright.
 The tone is one of retroprospect, of orse who is consciously through with a great task and looks far into the future, and like an undertone can be detected the sadness of fare well. In the Presidents own express sive phrase it is confession Of faith.'
 At this supreme moment his mind turns to that other great American President with whom in the years to come his name will be so often link ed and in that sentence of Lincols's 'Let us have faith that right makes might. and in that fath let us dare to do our duty as we understand it, a sentence which he calls immortal, he finds his text.
 This he says is the essential faith of the nation, the faltn III which it was conceived, and the faith in which it has grown to glory and power" and points out that upon this faith rests the hope of the world for a thew order in which reason and right would take precedence of covetousness and force."
 Then follow a few concrete sug- gestions calling the attention of Con- gress to some of the obvious needs of the moment among the more salient points of which were:
 Revision and simplification of the tax laws.
 A fiscal programme to retire the floating debt of $2.5oO, 100000, and to pay at maturity in 1923 part of the Victory loan and war savings certificates of $5,OOO, 100000.
 A workable budget system, in the hands of a single body.
 Medical care, rehabilitation and vocational training for war victims Federal licenses for corporations engaged in interstate commerce with provisios for labelling with cost tags all goods sent to cold storage A loan to Armenia such as was made to the Allies during the war Grant the people of the Philip
 pines the independence "they SC honorably covet''
 Quite enough to keep an efficien Congress busy during the three months of tho present session. more . than enough for many months gauget by the past performance of the sixty sixth Congress.
 Then in clothing the President mind turns again to the reasons fo the. faith which is in him and he says
 "I have not so much laid be-
 fore you a series of recommenda-
 tions as sought to utter a confes-
 sion of faith, of the faith to
 stand by until my last fighting
 day. I believe this to be the
 faith of America, the faith of the
 future, and of all the victories
 which await national action in
 the days to come, whether in
 America or elsewhere"
 It is a worthy summons to highe things in national life and aspiration Woodrow Wilson's fellow citizer can well afford to give it more tha perfunctory attention.