The Washington herald., 1921-03-04
q The ass win carry his load. but not
double load; ride not free horse to death.
--cervantes.
Woodrow Wilson.


United States. They have included six
years of the stormfest and most critical period in
the world history. He came to office man of
unusral physical ygor. He leaves it broken in
health and physically wrecked
With him will go the utmost sympathy of all
citizens, with the hope that the rest which can only
come by release from official responsibility may
restore his strength and enable him to make an
historical record of his part in the world storm of
his administrations.
He has been the subject of bitterest contro-
versy 1t is peculiar that there is no middle ground
in individual opinion as to him. Those who do not,
. as ID were, smell him. worship him. He is to
Americans either the greatest and wisest, or the
mosttto be despised sort of divinity, or all that
deserves execration
Mr., Wilson may now well claim. and should
have. surcedse of criticism. As personality he
now goes from the realm of politics to that of his
tory. His record is closed. 1t would be neither
courteous, good taste nor good judgment to follow
him in his retirement with other than the respect
due former President, the sympathy due his phys
cal condition and the recognition of the consdera-
ton due that large body of citizensito whom he is
man worth of near alteration
Mr.. Wilson greatly changed while in office in
his attitude toward the public. Until the war came
he was approachable, genial. and apparently more
through accepted agencies Later he withdrew very
much within himself, worked in secret and could
be seen by fews and then usually only at his own
request.
Possibly in this personal secluson IS to be
found the cause of much of his troubles Keeping
incommunicado, he may often have been misunder-
stood at least he refused gain that understanding
which so largely comes from personal meeting and
exchange. There gradually grew between him and
even his own party leaders, barrier that was both
regretable and nationally unfortunate
But when the verdict of history comes its
decision will quite surely strike the balance between
excellent record domestic affairs which few
deny to bis administration, and his policies in foreign
affairs
AS to the latter, the judgment will largely CEN
ter around the league of nations. This will be the
old, old conflict between the ideal and the prac-
teal The league is his child. Unable to be the
mediator and peace maker to halt the war, he
wagered his future fame being the who
would end all His making unmaking in
forcing this as personal issue at the peace table
may be IS best expressed for the present by his
fellow idealist and co-worker Jan Smuts who says:
1t is fact that only of his great
power and influence and dogged determination
could have carried the covenant through that
Peace Conference. Others had with him
the great vision; others had perhaps given more
thought to the elaboration of the great plan.
. But his the power and the will that carried
it through. The covenant is Wilson's souvenir
to the future of the world. No one will ever
deny him that honor:
So tits that Woodrow Wilson goes from the
worlds highest office in which he had the greatest
opportunities under the most trying conditions of
his generation, idolized and execrated. Much of
the real story of these eight years remains to be
told 1t is the hope of his fellows of this and other
lands that he may be given the health and strength
and years to himself to tell what only he knows
in its completeness.