Norwich bulletin., 1920-06-18
Five Minutes a Day With Our Presidents Copyright 192o-By James Morgan

It fell to President Wilson not only to lead the country into the great war, but it was also his fortune to be the spokes- man of the allied people, Whether he stood before a joint session of congress, or amid the white headstones of Airing ton cemetery or by the tomb at Mt Yer non, he had the civilized world for his sounding board. Though he spoke in the quiet tones of the classroom, with out the gestures, the flowers or any of the braiding oratory, his winged words thundered above the roaring guns of Arma ageddon, making themselves heard in the entrenchments and the capitals of the enemy as we'll as of the entente,
 He became the master propagandist in a war of propaganda. His typewriter in the White House was the Big Bertha of the Allies, getting the range of Pots dam and of Vienna, 4,000 miles away, and raining it's shells on the roofs of the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs.
 The German government at first scorn- ed. then distorted and finally suppressed the presidents indictments of it. They were SIT z gled over the border by spies and airplanes Enemy soldiers and peo- ples were forbidden,sunder the penalty Of treason, to pick them up; but they pass ed from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth in secret circulation, or were hid den under hearthstones in the cottages of the peasantry, who treasured them as a new gospel of deliverence from war.
 The presidency was carried to the summit of world influence, becoming the lofty tribune from which the moral judgments of humanity were pronounc- ed. For no European premier could speak of the elected chief of America, whose speeches were accepted as the lIn- partial verdict of a great jury of 100,- 900 900 detached and disnterested peo- pie, the largest body of public opinion anywhere. Tt is the voice of posterity, v exclaimed a French statesman at the re- ception of the presidents war message, which was read in the schools and posted on the dead walls of France.
 Avenues, streets, square and bridges of ancient cities were renamed for the President. Men toiled up Mt Blanc with the Stars and Stripes in their hands, to bestow the name of Wilson on an Alpine peak.
 l It was neither Woodrow Wilson nor yet the President of the United States who had the power so to fuse the peoples | in a fraternity of faith and unify the Al 1 lied front at home and abroad. The man and the magistrate had become a
 symbol of freedom. the banner bearer, of hope, the tongue of the silent, heav- | fly burden of masses of war-Stricken Flu
 rope giving voice to their mute longing
 for emancipation from militarism and l imperialism. A mighty force had laid l hold upon him, making him it's mouth piece it smegaphone, and giving his words
 such dominion over the minds of men 1 as the words of none other ever had | yielded
 With the donwfall of the Czar, the most sinister partner in the Entente, and with America drawn into the war, the president saw the conflict in the light l of those two events which happened within three weeks of each other, as a
 struggle between the free peoples and autocratic government, a fight to make the world safe for democracy, a war
 against war. That alignment simplifed the issue to the popular imagination making the war seem at least no longer a ] wrestle for power and trade, but duel between democracy and autocracy, with | the American President and the German l Kaiser typifying the contendnig hosts. The President himself has sadly ad- naitted that some of the hopes which he innocently awakened resulted in meta physical tragedy" Was it all only a dream?? Was the beautiful vision which rose before a despairnig world only mi
 rage of the desert, the desert which the war had made? The years, not the hours, will answer.
 T However far the reality may prove ir the sequel to have fallen short of the ideal, this republican chief was at least enabled to doom the autocracies which | he had challenged. The German ant
 Austrian Emperors themselves made Pres ident Wilson the arbiter of their fatt !, when their governments came to him a: suitors for peace. If the wireless of tht
 Nauen Tower had called London ol
 Paris, those Kaisers might still b. wearing their crowns but when instead
 Washington was called, the answer flash l ed back fro nthe White House that tn,
 peoples of Germany and Austria mus , speak for themselves before the presiden Iwould refer to the Allies the request fo an armistice. That was the death sen tence of kaiserisn1. and down wen
 thrones that had stood an age.
 l The rest: The presidents journey t Europe, the treaty and the battle over ii are history still in the making. Man, = years must pass before that extraordin ary chapter in the story of the presiden
 ey will be finished and may be told ii ? the spirit of historical impartiality, ii THE END