The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1921-03-10
Exit Woodrow Wilson

SAYS the Greensboro News g
Thursday:
Tomorrow at noon Woodrow Wilso
steps from the stage of public at
fairs into the comparative obscurit
of private life. 1t is eight years ag
tomorrow since he assumed the offic
Of President of the United States
eight years, as measured by the cal
endar, but aeons, as measured by tn
course of human events. It was hi
fate to be the most powerful ruler il
the world during the most fearfu
crisis in civilizations history. Fol
= thoughtful and conscientious man il
was an awful doom; and awfully have
it's pains and penalties been visitec
upon Mr. Wilson.
He came into power one of the most
enviable of men. Of towering emf
nence, in his profession, with a rec
ord of great achievement behind him
in scholarship, in literature, and in
public affairs. with millions of enthu-
siastic followers at his back, men
who saw in him the victorious result
of "a long struggle toward political
expression of all free and liberal spir-
its, and at the same time the embed
irnent of the promise of the future;
hale in body, strong in mind, unblem-
ished in reputation, universally re-
Spected and admired, he seemed in
deed the young Henry, come to the
throne under favorable star, to ease
the land df it's strife and purge it of
accumulated ills. ...-..-.
That waseight years ago. Tomor-
row he goes out, shattered, SCARED
and broken, in body and in spirit.
Loaded with burdens too crushingly
heavy for any mortal to bear, exc
Grated, not for his own faults alone,
but for the frailties of all humanity;
rent, nat by the beasts of prey whom
he faced alone, but also by every
iackal that skulked behind him.; SLAM
dered, villifed, bounded fairly unto
to the grave, and in the end, utterly
defeated in his supreme struggle, who
can call him enyiable now?
We'll, it requires long vision, sup
ported by much faith to see that the
PRESIDENT is deserving of anything
butt compassion. ,Forthe moment, he
is .tudnquestio bankrupt. He has
lost the government. He has lost the
leadership of his party. He has lost
the enthusiastic support of his coun-
trymen. He has lost his health and
ali but lost his life. And among the
sadly numerous mean-spirited he has
lost his character. Nor was it with
out cause, for he committed the crime
that, throughout the course of human
history, has been the offense most GER
tain to bring swift and relentless
punishment in it's train-the crime
that prepared the block for Raleigh,
and the stake for Huss; the crime
that brought the cup of he1nl0elS to
Socrates, and caused third Allows
to- be erected on that hangmansss hill
that men in ancient days called The
Skull-the crime of being too far
ahead of his time. ...I
Yet, although that Offense is ever
visited by the almost universal con-
of mankind, there are
now, as always, those to whom it is
no crime at all, but who rejoice in 1t
and boast of it as a virtue. Out OF
the wreckage of his career, Woodrow
Wilson has at least salvaged the
hearts of such as these. Perhaps they
are foolish people, for they regard
but lightly the overthrow of his aspl-;
rations and the defeat of his plans. |
tn the traces of his terrible wounds
thev can see no disfguremnt, but
merely honorable scars; his broken
BODY and exhausted spirit are to them I
10 more tokens of defeat than are |
the broken bodies of those soldiers (
that German fire and steel converted |
into mere remnants of men. what |
ghey consider memorable about Wood
row Wilson is not that he failed, put I
that he tried; "that he had vision
where others had passion; that he
looked to the future, while they look |
ed OF the past; that he drew his IN
sDiration from reason and truth, while
they drew their experiences from ha-
tired, greed and fear"
All over this vast continent they
are scattered-the men who labored |
with Mr.. Wilson, fought with Mr.. Will i
exulted in him, and went down to |
defeat with him. They are not neces-
Safily blind to his faults, but they |
IRE keen eyed as to his virtues; and |
they know that what he strove to !
blild was founded upon the living !
rock of truth and righteousness. Even
In defeat he has triumphed; for he
has recast the thought of the world,
and the villainies that eight years
ago would, have been perpetrated
quite openly and as a matter of
course, when each nation thought of
itself alonet today, because of Mr..
Wilson, are done secretly and covered
with elaborate apologies. His enc
mics have; struck down the architect,
hut the foundations Of his building
they cannot move. Other hands will
take UP the labor, and ong after
Wilson ard the men who worked with
him are dead, the turrets and the
structure that he dreamed will i bel
climbing slowly, perhaps, out surely
toward the skies.
B, Incongruous, indeed, then would it
be for those whose boast it is that
they served, no matter in how small
"a way, under Wilson, to offer him con-
SdOlences tomorrow. Their message,
on the contrary, is one of the proud