VOLUME XXV

NUMBER 5

A

ND now comes Mr. Wilson's new era, the era of his "new freedom." It is not merely the happy phrase of a courageous and well-equipped man. It is

a brilliant opportunity. With the confidence of friends and with the good wishes of his political opponents, the new President and his old party come into power.

The change was quite due. The moral and patriotic impulse that gave such long leadership to the Republican party became, under many abuses, a spent impulse. The philosophy of politics and of life which the Democratic party stands for, in its right interpretation, is held by quite half our population and it is proper and wholesome that they should find expression and fair trial.

There is no affectation in the new President, but there is a fundamental simplicity of life and even a certain asceticism. Pomp and show are foreign to his nature. His dignity is the dignity of character and an intellectual dignity. And this essential simplicity is going to make a difference in Washington life. He will be to the man who has business with him the most direct and approachable of Presidents and to the merely casual man the most aloof. He re

gards his office as a serious task and not as a chance for personal conspicuousness.

Most broad-minded men have high hope of Mr. Wilson and many of them have deep fears of his party. It will be well for the country if it succeed, if for no other reason to prove that the art of self-government can be successful when practised by any large group of American citizens and does not belong exclusively to any one party. We are Americans before we are Republicans or Democrats. Our institutions and our political instincts are more fundamental than our partisan divisions.

Holding no brief for any President or for any party, the WORLD'S WORK speaks the true American spirit when it expresses high hope and good wishes for our new masters and confidence in them.

Of course it is the same tough old world which has seen other men enter the White House with high hopes high hopes that some have realized and that more have seen fade away into the gray day of Things-as-they-are. But in spite of this, ours is a new era, an era of a new conscience in business, of a new political accountability to the public, and of a new "call for the emancipation of the generous energies" of the people.