crusaders to carry the banner of freedom three thousand miles across great waters. Across those waters there flowed in 1917 and 1918 not only the 2,000,000 troops that were to complete the final undoing of Germany, but an invisible force of bright and great thoughts spreading and gathering force until they engulfed the continent. In places and lands where democracy had had no meaning, men asked what that force was which had induced a great nation to take up arms; what that new religion which had so inspired Americans to great sac THE BIRTHPLACE OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S MOTHER, rifice and complete devotion. Once that spiritual force was unloosed, the example became infectious.62 It was in 1807 that a County Down Scotch-Irish youth named James Wilson landed in Philadelphia, got work there as a printer, that old craft of adventurers and wanderers, with small purses stuffed with hope the craft of Horace Greeley and Ben Franklin. He married an Ulster girl, who had "come over" in the same emigrant ship, thrived as a printer and become an editor in Pittsburgh, whence his son, after learning the same trade, went to college and became a Presbyterian minister, after the fashion of many Ulsterites, and in 1855 was pastor of a church in Staunton, Virginia, where, sixty-two years before the day on which that son was staying at Buckingham Palace with the King of England, that son was born, one who, by whatever gifts of will, of genius, of destiny, of energy, of industry, of ambition, of fortune's smiles, had become, in 1917-1919 the pillar 62 A. Maurice Low in The Review of Reviews (New York). of the hopes of many peoples and perhaps "the foremost man of all this world.” Woodrow Wilson was born a professor. His early academic environment seemed to have bespoken for him not more than the subdued but far-spreading influence of a teacher, or the head of a college or university. It was like a story from fairyland, his sudden rise and his fitness for high posts and duties. Not till he had led a peaceful people to war and filled them with the ardor of his own conviction, not until his long patience, unyielding courage, large perception of essentials and general principles, the passion and power of his speech, had filled the world with his fame, did any one begin to take Wilson's proper measure. There were flaws enough to pick in him, and the bitterness of censure, not infrequently well founded, had been equal to the fervor of the praise bestowed on him. But this, at least, no one denied him, that before he reached man's grand climacteric, he had reached that of world fame. More applauded, more illustrious, more powerful, he could never be; nor could he inspire any more sympathetic interest, or kindle any wider attention in the world, than on that birthday anniversary in Buckingham Palace, or that day two weeks afterward when he was made a citizen of Rome on the Capitoline hill-top. His position among leaders of democracy was unique; the plenitude of his fame startled all observers. This grandson of an emigrant had returned, in 1918, the "pillar of a people's hope, the center of a world's desire,” and on Sunday, December 29, went to Carlisle, there to receive the freedom of the city and worship in his grandfather's church.63 Tardy as they had been in recognition of Mr. Wilson as a man of genius, European papers in Allied countries, after his re-election in 1916, more than made amends for earlier criticism by now ascribing to him rare gifts. From the liberal Daily News, in London, which saw in him a supreme master of statecraft, to the Tribuna in Rome, which had to go back to Cavour for his parallel, there came an admiring chorus. Extreme ideas prevailed as to the seclusion in which he loved to live. The Paris Rappel compared his solitude to that of a monk. Others made comparisons with great ecclesiastical statesmen of the Middle Ages. German dailies conceded his ability, but inclined to present him as artful, crafty, and hypocritical. The Berlin Kreuz-Zeitung deemed him an altogether sinister figure, devious in methods, subtle in policy, and lacking scruple. He had not hesitated, in the opinion of the Frankfurter Zeitung, to play the part of tool for the British. He was born a trickster, who had succeeded Sir Edward Grey as the world's arch-demon. The complete revolution that took place in Entente estimates after 63 The Times (New York). PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARDINAL MERCIER The two are standing at the entrance to the Cardinal's house in Malines 1916 was based on considerations set forth elaborately in the London Daily News. His ability to lead struck that journal as amazing. There had been no one in Europe to compare with him since Gladstone, altho the traits and temperaments of the two were as the poles asunder. Mr. Wilson showed in his acts a comprehension of politics on the scientific side which living statesmen of the European countries had conspicuously lacked. In him, said the Tribuna of Rome, Germans in the Wilhelmstrasse had met their match; they found they now had a scholarly recluse to overreach. This man of fine phrase, this dealer in terms so spontaneous and unforced that he seemed to do his thinking aloud, this idealist and democrat, could understand an Austria ruled by the Metternich method as easily as he could divine a Prussian Junker. No American before him, no American at any rate in a place of power, had comprehended Europe as anything but a great and remote generality, but Wilson made distinetions, differentiated essences, penetrated combinations, moved with the art of some class diplomatist working with Bourbons. He was Florentine in the tactfulness of his approach, Roman in his scope, French in his politeness, British in his forthrightness and yet American in his daring, his freedom from the trammels of traditions. He mingled with intellectual inferiors without despising them and he could be sarcastic without cruelty. If Europe had been slow in getting the measure of him, she saw him now more accurately than did many of his countrymen. Europe's first impressions in 1915 and 1916 were based on criticisms of Wilson emanating to a great extent from his own countrymen. Involved in a struggle for world-power, Europe did not distinguish at first the voice of mere partizan detraction from that of the competent critic. There had spread over the old world the legend of a mincing pedant, writing meaningless notes. He had the old Roman suaviter in modo coming a long way before the fortiter in re. The Jagows, Bethmann-Hollwegs, and Zimmermanns failed to realize the determination of character that was following them up, step by step, until they found themselves suddenly caught in a trap and baffled. European statesmen who had criticized him might have imitated him with advantage to themselves-his coolness under extreme provocation, his self-restraint, his ability to control events, his self-effacement, a man who had not taken the center of the world's stage like a man rushing up on horseback. Germans strove to make it appear that he was consumed by his own vanity and sought to thrust himself forward as a peacemaker, but not once had a trace of egotism shown itself in his attitude. In histories of this war, affirmed the Hamburger Nachrichten, its sinister figure, its evil genius, would be discerned in the grandson |