Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-11-13
BITTER AND UNJUST WORDS

BITTER AND UNJUST WORDS
To those not acquainted with all
the circumstances the bitter words of
Ex-President Wilson will convey an
impression discreditable to the coun-
try which conferred on him the
greatest honor within it's power to
bestow
Americas attitude after the World
War deeply ignoble because mani
testify cowardly and dishonorable.
How those, who term us a nation of
money grabbers," will roll those Ii
bellous words of the ex-President as
sweet morsels under their tongues!
Compare this, which virtually is
slander, with the summing up of the
American attitude by an eminent
Englishman, Lord Birkenhead, who
recently visited the United States
and here found that which interprets
our attitude better than we ourselves
could do. Referring to US he says:
"That people is the most generous
people in the field of international
charity. The United States have Law
ished countless millions of dollars
upon the starving population of
Russia and they were the first in the
field with bountiful relief for the
stricken Japanese.
But they draw. and rightly draw,
a sharp and logical distinction be-
tween idealism in their capacity as
private citizens or private charity
and idealism in their corporate or
national character, and accordingly
they exercise their undoubted right
In repudiating at the first opportunity
an idealistic contention which they
believe to be at once impracticable,
strange to their position and incom-
patible in their national interests"
1t is regrettable that Woodrow
Wilson has so unjustly condemned
the country's motives. His charge is
creditable neither to himself nor to
his country which we wish to be-
lieve he tried to serve and did not
spare himself in the. serving.
Nowhere that he have seen has it
been shown that had this country
gone into the League of Nations I'M
reservedly, could 1t have given to
Germany an honorable will to pay
Its obligations or mitigated the greed
of those who have kept alive and
fan the hates of the war? Why, it
was not able to set its own house in
order. At the very moment Presi-
dent Wilson was insisting on set
ting Europe's house in order, and
on maintaining and assuming we
could depend on the high resolve
which had brought the war to con-
clusion. at that very time when he
was insisting on the strict definition
Of his ideal of world super-govern-
ment according to his plan, insisting
on the text rather than on the spirit,
We at home had relaxed from high
endeavor and no administration of
our national affairs ever went out Of
office more barren of the ideals of
honesty, efficiency and fairness in
home affairs than did that of Wood
row Wilson. 1t would be unjust to
charge him with this, when he lay a
broken man on his sick bed, but it
does demonstrate the utter futility
of his ideal that we alone were need
ed to compel Europe to work on the
high plane where we for the time
were unable to work ourselves. We
find no cause to doubt that had Pres
ident Wilson met the situation in a
spirit of compromise much might
have been done and we would have
become pledged to as high interna =
tional endeavor as we were capable of
undertaking.
Instead, having pledged this coun-
try to scheme, an undertaking for
which he had no warrant, he prefer
red to stand out for his own notions
rather than to make a beginning.
Wilful, obstinate, self-centered then.
he is no less so now. In this atti-
tude he surely is consistent, but in
stead of helping the country to do
that which 1t wishes to do, render to
Europe such aid as it wisely may, he
becomes an obstacle. Wilson's plan
for participation in the League of
Nations will not be adopted, though
II he can have his way, 1t may prove
n bone of political contention and an
obstacle at a time when this country
is already doing all it wisely may to
help Europe to help herself.