Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-04-30
FINDS WILSON HATED
JUST AS LINCOLN WAS
Mania Against Executive as Bit
ter as it Was Against War
President, Says Analyst.
Francis King Carey in n. Y. Times

Francis King Carey in n. Y. Times
Once upon a time a man with doubt
ful sense of humor established a magazine
which seems to have been designed to
open its columns to writers whose views
collided with those held by well-estab-
ilshed public opinion, and he called 1t
the Unpopular Review IL would not
have been surprising if tho editor of
The New York Times had referred the
writer of this article TO the magazine
in question instead of publishing il HIM
self, because il must be admitted at the
outset that an attempt to swim up tn g
strong current of the national and, TO
some extent, the international hysteria
of anti-Wilson mania-it can be desig
mated by no less forceful word-has in
1t elements of futility if not perverse-
ness.
Conceding for the purposes of argu-
ment tSfat the fashion of anti-Wil-
son feeling, resolving itself in very many
quarters into well-defined and uncom-
promising hatred and even contempt, is
only fashion" which will pass, and
that there may be behind the public ex-
pressions of this feeling an unexpreAsed
opinion which has only for a moment
been silenced, it must be granted that,
for the moment ut least-to use popu-
lar expression-Wilson has been "bawled
out, ;" and that in great many quarters
and by q great many different classes
of people it is being either ioyfully claimed
or sadly admitted that Wilson is not only
n "down and out failure but has not
been loyal even TO his own causes and
ideals, if, indeed, present-day criticism
credits him with ever having truly stood
for either a cause or an ideal worthy of
remembrance.
It is both noteworthy and significant
that Harvey's Weekly, which the editor
of The New Republic would probably
call the Town Topics of Reactionary
Politics" and The New Republic, which
the editor of Harvey Weekly would prob
ably call the "Police Gazette OF Applied
Anarchy" alike exhaust the language of
insult and contempt to describe him. In
money-minded Wall street, in culture
minded Boston, in practical-minded
Chicago, in the fashionable clubs of men
and women, and in the gatherings of
Socialist, Communist and undesignated
proletariat assemblies you can always
start something" to your personal dis
comfiture and eventual humiliation if
YOU offer the barest suggestion that Viii
son has or deserves any defense; and you
will have a very lonely time if YOU under
AXE TO offer any. Even among men
Who have been counted his political
friends and supporters YOU will find
many who have grown weary of SWIM
ming against the current and who let
themselves down with the statement that
hey are still loyal but sorrowing.
COMPARISON WIN LINCOLN.
r.
'essienal 'uplifters," few professional I
oacifists and the negligible array of Office /
holding men and women who look to him /
and his administration for their daily /
bread. YOU will be forced TO conclude that I
at present Wilson-slowly and heroically
from terrifying Illness which
would have long AGO sent into retirement
a less brave or less determined man
is as lonely and we'll hated President as
Abraham Lincoln was in the year of grace
1Sf2i
But what viii history say9
Men who have reached and passed the
chloroform age of three score years, if
thev have led and are still leading reason
ably normal and active business and
professional life, acquire the habit not only
of looking backward over the considerable
tract of time which their lives have cover
ed. but Of looking fOrward-say for an
other score of years and, after applying
their practical experience, be it small or
to the judgment of events
which are passing IN review before them.
try to project their minds into the future
and to inquire dispassionately what will
be the Judgment of twenty years hence,
because experience has taught them that
The Judgment Of the world, recorded in
history twenty wears hence" has an
way of reversing the judg-
ments inspired by the fashions, hysterias
and the manIas of the passing moment.
The reason for this is not far TO seek.
History. in the first place, Is much more
with the record of results than
with the record of the instruments which
have been selected TO bring the results
about. Because this is true, history is
rather disauietingly disposed to measure
men who have played prominent parts
IN shaping great events rather from the
standpoint Of the event itself than from
The standpoint of the personal char
lcteristics of the man. And history is a
'wise guy" on the subject of manias and
fashions and hysterias and is singularIv
and unastonished by them.
TWENTY YEARS AFTER.
OF course, IT is rather happy fact that
n only rare cases men live long enough to | ,
suffer the supreme modification of dis :
covering twenty years hence that they
lad allowed their judgments To be warned ,
~ passing fashion" and that they had
actually stood In the presence of a great I
went without for p moment graspinp $
,ither its greatness Or its significance: !
md that they had ben really guilty of a I
orn of political ''pftvincialism. +" or. as ]
,ur English friends would sav. 1'naro- {
hialism" IL would, moreover. be fhe /
efinement OF cruelty 10 reincarnate those
i our ancestors who burnt witches
lrifed dueling, backed the slave trade
&c, if at the same time you gave them the {
ttitude of the present moment toward =
hese human ioible< And that train of f
hought is what maaes the man OF sixty n
Ut reserved about feeling sure that even q
reasonably well concerted public opinion 5
f today will be ind.rsed by history writ b
en- twenty years hence. y
When TennysOn sang of that {
one far off divine event h
Toward which the whole creation moves m
e was probably good enough historian 10 I
ealize that this ''orie" event was really a
of man, events which made
p the life and pr lgress of nation or L
'hlch represented The slow and painful \
limb of civilization toward the light. D
o lar as the short career of the United a
tates IS concerBcf-up at least to the L
and election Of Wilson-the n
Omposlte event of its development | o
as. represented il outline BY the Revo- | e