Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-29
WILSON ENEMIES
SCORED AT DINNER
President Williams of Virginia
Bar LaudS "DramatiC
Figure" of War.
BY the Associated Press.

STAUNTON, Va. December e.
Woodrow Wilson was the most dra-
matte figure among our Presidents.
said r. Gray Williams, president of
the Virginia State Bar Association,
last night at the anniversary celebra-
ton here marking the SEVENTEEN
birthday of the wartime leader.
Mr.. Williams was the principal
speaker at q banquet in a local hotel
to which about. 200 persons came.
Wilson" said Mr.. Williams, Ibid
not, in a moment of victory, like Lin
coin, have the processes Of his own
immortality accelerated by an assas-
sins bullet; but he played boldly, on a
broader stage. before a larger audi
ence, to the climax of the last act,
when he gave his own life in the
brave effort to save the lives Of others
Had fate been kinder, he should
have died when he uttered that last
moving appeal for the covenant at
Pueblo. But he fingered on, wounded
in body and spirit. to suffer most Of
all the knowledge that 1t was more
than sincere opposition to the League
and the treaty, that animated men
like Lodge in the fight to ruin his
work.
Clouded by Animosity.
Woodrow Wilson was hated by
many men in high places during his
life, and the poison gas, spread on the
wings of the animosity, has clouded
his shining face from the eyes Of the
people he served. Charges conceived
in malice or envy, or wounded pride
were circulated against him.
Even yet the hostile gas hovers over
the tomb Of Wilson. But a majestic
wind of eloquence dispelled these vile
vapors on at least one day, when Ed
win Anderson Alderman, president of
the University of Virginia, stood be-
fore the President and Congress Of the
United States and spoke brave and
brilliant words of affection and loyal
ty of this old student of our univer-
sity."
Mr.. Williams said that the fact re-
mains that majority public opinion
in America feels that Woodrow Will
son both failed himself and increased
the difficulties of his country at
time of PERIL
1.-THE most disturbing factors Of a
weakness in Mr.. Wilson were his sue
cessive breaks with close friends"
..
some pains to gather information
about his breaks with Col. George
Harvey, with Col. House and with
Secretary Lansing.
Enemies Are Scored.
Gin the case Of Col. Harvey, Mr..
Wilson was brutally frank in admit
ting that Harvey's support was doing
him more harm than good; but at
best an intimacy between Harvey and
Wilson was utterly unnatural. Will
son was an idealist; Harvey a realist.
There was always cynical quality
in Harvey that revealed itself when
he said in London that America had
fought only to save her own skin.
Harvey had his reward, one that
doubtless consoled his wounded pride,
for he was one of the most effective
sappers and miners that blew UP the
league and the treaty in the Senate.
Lansing was distinctly second rate
and illustrated Wilson's weakness in
the selection of men for large places.
His own book reveals that he was
hopelessly at variance with Mr.. Will
sons views and that he should have
resigned both as a matter of self
respect and loyalty to his chief.
mo one can doubt the loyalty and
love LnaL Col. House IeIC IOr WOOD
row Wilson, yet Wilson had elevated
House to his high estate and it was
not in the stern nature Of this Scotch.
Presbyterian convenanter to dissem-
BILE his feelings where Col. House con-
ceded so much for which Wilson in
tended to stand firm, between the time
Wilson left Paris with the draft of
the league in his pocket and the time
when he returned to find the covenant
separate from the treaty ITSELF"
II think that much of the misunder-
standing of Mr.. Wilson," said the
speaker, twas due to the fixed incli-
nation of men of affairs to assume that
candidates for Office mean only little
of what they say.
Woodrow Wilson was the best pre-
pared President in our history to ac-
complish a great program of liberal
economic reform. He did accomplish
such a program and he might well
have had second term equally as
successful, had the greatest of wars
not broken clamorsly in upon his
studious calm"