The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1922-02-17
CLIPPED COMMENT
The Man They Cannot Forget


its great enthusiasms. You may
have come to disdain and even de-
spise them. but they are never up
rooted. Then you reached your high
l. est-and you know it.
p When a noble ideal kindles such
a of those things that without warning
4 at rare intervals, flares up. And you
- sit in the light of the flare and pom
> der Why did 1t fail? Not because
y lit was not ul-right-desira-
+ BILE. Was it because you were not fit
o for beauty, righteousness, desirable
n Iity?
/ Peoples are like men. They may
d lay aside their great hopes, but to the
!. END there are hours when they sit
q with them and ponder.
u Perhaps that is the explanation of
Y the persistent, mysterious, uncon-
S scious way in which men to-day draw
| together around Woodrow Wilson. 1t
, requires explanation. Why, in Wash
f ington for months now, has the sight
f seeing wagon followed his car? Why
do the chattering tourists inside grow
= silent as they pass it? They don't
j, peer. They lift their hats and sigh,
S and it sometimes takes minutes and
= striking sights to break the mood the
4 fleeing glimpse of that drawn, long
Y white face has stirred.
d Why is it that on Sundays and
:. holidays men and women and child
t ren-most of them busy through the
t week-walk to his house and stand
IS there in groups, speak together in
2, hushed tones as if something solemn
e and ennobling moved in them? Curl
r Iosity? Men chatter and gibe and
Re jostle in curiosity. These people are
e silent, gentle, and orderly. You will
lie see them before the theatre on nights
10 when it is known that Mr.. Wilson is
re within, quietly waiting for him to
lie come out. There will be fifty, a hun
+ dred, even sometimes a thousand.
They cheer him as he passes, and
e. there are often chokes in the cheers,
and always tenderness. Why do they
do it? Nothing more instructive,
more implanted, goes on in Washing
ct ton. Let it be known that he is in
n his seat in a theatre, and the whole
I'll house will rise in homage. Let his
Id face be thrown on the screen, and it
of will draw a greeting that the face
I'd of no other living American receives.
IS And that is not true in Washington
hit alone.
in Why should the vast throng that
d packed Pennsylvania Avenue from
end to end on Armistice Day have
o. stood reverently, with heads barred in
so silence as the bier of the Unknown
st. Soldier passed, attended by all the
o., official greatness of the moment-the
MI President, his Cabinet, the Supreme
is- Court, the House, the Senate, the
Diplomatic Corps, Pershing, Foch-
why should this great crowd have
watched in silence until. quite unex-
at pectedly, a carriage far down the line
NC came to view? Why should this
II crowd, unconscious of what it was
wv doing, have broken into a low cry of
50 sympathy and grief; There's Will
as SOM" The cry flew down the long
dI avenue.
~ They saw him as the man who had
80 called into service the boy they hon
- ored, who had put the wonderful
- light in his eye, that light of which a
- great French surgeon said THE
- American soldier is different from all
- others. l don't what it is, whether
~ it is God, the Monroe doctrine, or
- President Wilson; but he has some
r thing in his eye" Yes, Wilson's
81 place was by the dead soldier, and
~ the people knew it, and told him so
u by their unconscious outburst.
r Woodrow Wilson means some
ID thing to the people of the United
le States: something profound, some
,e thing they cannot forget. People
think of him now as the man who was
behind the inspiration of their great
lest moments; who stirred them to a
y fresh understanding of the meaning
of the words that had become mere
patter on many Ongues-''democra
e cy," union" He made them reali-
re ties, personal, deep-showed them as
is the reason of all that is good in our
lie present, all that is hopeful in our
W future, the working basis on which
n men may strive to liberty of soul and
peaceful achievement. He made
them literally things to die for, lifting
es all of our plain, humble thousands
he who never knew applause or wealth
t. or the honor of office into the ranks
- of those who are willing to die for
a an ideal-the highest plane that hui
-, mans reach.
IT People are thinking, also, of his
work in that after-war period when
the hate, revenge, and bitterness that
war has loosed have none of the re-
III straints that war compels, and we