Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-06-15
FiUe Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
A Professor In Politics
By JAMES MORGAN.

PrDiRSSDf III IOtIlitS
Neither Woodrow Wilson nor his
Administration has yet passed into
history. whose judgment on them II
would be folly to trS &C foreteIl,
Nevertheless. much OF the record oil
this Presidency is made up n closed.
and may be summarized at ieast, al
though 1t is perhaps foolhardy to
venture into the flame of passions that
blind men alike TO the merits ana
dement's of almost every President
while he remains the central figure OF
partisan strife. "A Statesman Is a
politician who Is dead" said Thomas
b. Reed.
The Presidency is a looking glass, In
which we may see reflected the
changes in the social conditions
Thought, manners, tastes and In the
dream of the country. with the rise
lof democracx. Jefferson was the nrst
President with unpowdered hair. A
succession of ~log-cabin Presidents,
which opened with Jackson n
closed with Garfield reflected the APP
pearance and the disappearance OF
our frontier. The Civil Wal Is regis
tered in the very faces of the Presi-
! Dental gallery, which were clean
shaven until the advent of Bincoln
and the four soldier Presidents that
came after him all OF whom were
bearded like the pard.' Then came
the era of the business man, with
three out of six of Ii latest chief
magistrates wearing the unstatesman-
like mustache.
In the eighty years that we re-
manned largely an agricultural
try. all our Presidents with a solitary
exception, were farmers sons. With
the growth of our urban population
'all of the Presidents in the past fifty
years, save one. were town born.
While "a college diploma remained
the privilege Of a class u democracy
often preferred to follow ~uneducated
or self-educated leaders. Now That
higher education is in a process of
characterization, all but two of the
presidents elected since Lincoln have
been college graduates.
In this age of ours, when men are
going to school to learn business and
Farming and all manner of vacations
1t was natural hat there hould ap-
Woodrow Wilson who had learned
politics in the classroom rather h
in tho wardroom. The eighth of II
Virginia-born President-in reality he
Is not a Virginian, but the son of an
Ohio clergyman and of an English
mother-as a student or teacher OF
the sciense or rather the art of
governing lOI Thirty stdtS bCiOit hC
held a political office.
Thai fact was left out of their reck-
oning by the Democratic bosses OF
corrupt, m~achineruled New Jersey
when they summoned the president
of Princeton University from the golf
links one afternoon in the fall OF
1910 to receive the nomination for
Governor. When this supposed no.
vice in politics declared, as he found
1-11 4lIr.nA xvIn1 h. LnI 40 nu-r.
up was the first political speech. that
t elected Governor he would govern.
the politicians nudged one another
and laughed in their sleeves at the
idea of a professor trying to run their
machine. They laughed out loud
when they saw him actually sit down
in the Governors chair and begin
to play politics out of a book.
or all things. it was a book which
he himself had written in his youthful
school days merely as a thesis for
his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. The
young graduate-student made the
discovery that our Constitution Great
ed a vacuum, which the bosses had
rushed in to fill.
In Europe. the executive and the
Legislature are one and the same
thing: here they are separate. with nc
one authorized to direct or lead the
entire G~oSernment. Consequently the
headless affair in Washington and in
every State capital had fallen under
an unauthorized, irresponsible bossisin
of one kind or another. Wherefore
the author contended that d Governor
ltor President. as the only official
known n responsible to all the peo-
pie, should lead. not leaving the job
to some hidden party machine or
managing politician. who in turn
would he in the secret control of pri-
waite interests.
When at last the theorist had a
chance to try out his theory on the
New Jersey Government, 10! 1t work.
ed like a charm Laboring together,
Governor Wilson and the Legislature
made over in two crowded years the
election. corporation public utility
and labor laws of a most r~eactionary
State.
Alas, popular leadership is neither
a science nor an art that can be
taught out of a book. 1t can be ac-
auired only in fellowship with the
people and Woodrow Wilson has
had less contact with the life OF the
Nation any of our Presidents.
Where other leaders of our democ-
racy have appealed TO the emotions,
he is one of the least electric, least
dramatic of our Presidents, with no
anecdotes to popularize him, with no
legends of his youth or myths about
his political career to -vitalize him TO
the general imagination. He owes
his various successes at the polls to
the cold logic of the political situa-
ton and little to his popularity. His
academic aloofness from politics. at
a time when politicians had fallen into
disfavor. made him the available man
for Governor in 1910. As a candidate
for President. he ran a poor second
to Champ Clark in the popular pri-
maries OF 1912. when he was nomi-
mated at Baltimore only after forty
five ballots. and then only as a result
Of Bryan's overthrow of the steam
roller. And he was elected by the
division of the Republicans between
Roosevelt and Taft, though he re-
ceived a smaller vote than the Demo
Gratis had polled in three past elec-
lions.
It is the tragedy of Woodrow WI
sons nature that when the elements
were mixed In him. magnetism was De
fnied him. that lodestone which drwws
1.-THE ~ Of men. Tho head hnn been
lths p~owerhouse Of his l~eadership.
AtM#E& M#&