A CAVORTING PRESIDENT.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 220, 16 September 1919, Page 4

A CAVORTING PRESIDENT.

Criticism of President Wilson in his relation to the Peace Treaty is descending to the level of General Choke, Hannibal ChoMop and Elijah Pog am. When he accuses Mr. Wilson of" cavorting around" with representatives of European monarchies, and wasting more money travelling than was ever expended by any prince or potentate, Senator Xorris puts himself in ■ a line with the creations of Pickens. The appeal is to the old sentiment that rega ds Europe as effete, monarchs as degenerate peoples who wear their crowns even in bed, and America as the world's monopolist of freedom. "Well, sir, I tell you this," said one of Martin Chuzzlewit's acquaintances of Queen Victoria, "there ain't an en-gine with its biler bust, in God A'mighty's free U-nited States, so fixed, and nipped and frizzled .to a most e-tarnal smash a3 that young c itter in her luxurious location in the Tower of London, will be, when she reads tho noxt double-extra 'Water-toast Gazette.'" When Senator Xorris complains of Mr. Wilson's "cavorting" round Europe at considerable expense, one wonders what he expected the President to do. Did ho wish him to go abroad with a wardobe consisting of a slop suit, a flannel shirt, a pair of pyjamas, and a tooth-brush? One Ame-

rican President received the English Ambassador in his shirt sleeves; perhaps Mr. Norris thinks Mr. Wilson ought to have gone to Buckingham Palace in dunga ecs. "' Rough he may be. So air our Barrs. Wild he may be. So air our Buffalers. But he is a child of Natur; and a child of Freedom; and his boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant is, that his bright homo is in the Settin' ■Sun." The spectacle of a member of Congress rebuking Mr. Wilson for ext a.vagance is a contribution to the gaiety of nations-Congress which dips its hand yearly into the " pork-barrel" quite shamelessly, and does not even .furnish a Budget to the people it misrepresents. It is clear that America is in fo a revival of the old spread-eagleism, in which every prejudice and every political interest will find unhampered expression. Tlie Lion's tail is to be twisted vigorously, and every appeal that unscrupulous ingenuity can frame is to be addressed to that section of the American people which has lived in the igno ant isolation of the interior, has the most shadowy ideas of other count ies, and imagines that the United States won the war. It is amusing, but far less amusing than pitiable. One can only hope that the common-sense and latent idealism of America will save the Treaty and the nation.