The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1922-03-09
(From Golfers Weekly.D

(From Golfers Weekly)
One of the permanent possessions
of human heart is the memory OF us
great enthusiasms. You may have
come to disdain and even desplse
them. but they are never uprooted.
Then you reached your highest-and
you know it.
When a noble ideal kindles such
enthusiasms, that ideal becomes one
of those things that without warning,
at rare intervals, flares up. And you
sit in the light of the flare and pom
der. Why did it fail? Not because
it was not beautiful -right-desir-
able. Was it because you were not
fit for beauty, righteousness, desira-
bility?
Peoples are like men. They may
lay aside their great hopes, but to the
end there are hours when they sit
with them and ponder.
Perhaps that is the explanation of
the persistent, mysterious, uncon-
seious way in which men today draw
together around Woodrow Wilson. 1t
requires explanation. Why, in Wash
ington for months now, has the sight
seeing wagon followed his car? Why
do the ohattering tourists inside grow
silent as they pass it? They don't
peer. They lift their hats and slgh'
and it sometimes takes minutes and
striking sights to break the mood the
fieeting glimpse of that drawn, long
white face has stirred.
Why is it that on Sundays and
holidays men and women and child
dren-most of them busy through
the week-walk to his home and
stand there in groups, speak togeth-
er in hushed tones as if something
solemn and ennobling moved in
them? Curiosity? Men chatter and
gibe and jostle in curiosity. These
people are silent, gentle and orderly.
You will see them before the theater
on nights when it is known that Mr..
Wilson is within, quietly waiting for
him to come out. There will be fifty,
a hundred, even sometimes thous-
and.
They cheer him as he passes, and
there are often chokes in the cheers
and always tenderness. Why do they
do it? Nothing more instructive,
more unplanned, goes on in Wash
ington. Let it be known that he is
in his seat in a theater, and the whole
house will rise in homage. Let his
face be thrown on the screen, and it
will draw greeting that the face of
no other living American receives.
And that is not true in Washington
alone.
Why should the vast throng that
packed Pennsylvania avenue from
end to end on Armistice Day have
stood reverently, with heads barred in
silence as the bier of the unknown
soldier passed, attended by all of the
official greatness of the moment
the President, his cabinet, the. Su-
preme court, the house, the senate,
the diplomatic corps, Pershing, Foch
why should this great crowd have
watched in silence until quite unex-
pectedly, a carriage far down the line
came in to view? Why should this
crowd, unconscious of what it was
doing, have broken into low cry of
sympathy and grief; There's Will
son!'' The cry flew down the long
avenue.
They saw him as the man who had
called into service the boy they hon
ored, who had put the wonderful light
in his eye, that light of which great
French surgeon said: "The American
soldier is different from all others.
] don't Know what it is, whether it
is God, the Monroe doctrine, or Pres
ident Wilson; but he has something
in his eye." Yes, Wilson's place was
by the dead soldier, and the people
knew it, and told him so by their un-
conscious outburst.
Woodrow Wilson means something
to the people of the United States;
something profound, something they
cannot forget. People think of him
now as the man who was behind the
inspiration of their greatest mo-
ments; who stirred them to fresh
understanding of the meaning OF
words that had become mere patter
on many tongues -"democracy,'
union.', He made them realities,
personal, deep-showed them as the
reason of all that is good in our pres