HEAD OF U.S.A.

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 49, 26 February 1921, Page 9

HEAD OF U.S.A.

PASSING OF WOODROW WILSON

A GREAT PERSONAL TRAGEDY

Next Friday, 4th March, the Presi-dent-Elect of the United States, Mr. Warren G. Harding, will move into the White House, and President Wilson's reign there will end. Thus will pass out of the official picture of the world's lead-srs one of its most prominent figures.

On 2nd November,.by a convincing vote, says a writer in The Round Table, the people of the United States repudiated Woodrow Wilson —his personality, his idealism, his administration, his conduct in and out of office, his Treaty «of Versailles, and his League of Nations. The "great and solemn referendum" which he planned and promised has destroyed him. The prophet has been dishonoured by his own country. He has been swept by the tide of aversion down from the highest pinnacle ever momentarily attained by a statesman of modern times.

The man whose pen splintered the swords of Prussia, the man before whose image the peasants of Italy burned candles, the man who gave form to the loftiest political ideal that ever captured the conscience of the world, is broken and beaten by the rods of his own people.

There, is no need to dwell upon this personal tragedy. It is clear, it is complete—and it is as old as time.

It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad; The honse-roofls seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day.

There's nobody on the housetops now,

Just a palsied few at the windows sit, For the best of the sight is, all allow, At the Shambles' Gate, or better yet, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

I go in the rain, and more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind j And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

There is no need to dwell upon bis faults. They have been well advertised. Woodrow Wilson's egotism, his mistakes of judgment, and his stern inflexibility have been mouthed and magnified by spellbinders during the campaign, to the joy of crowds who would seem to have, lost even their sense of sportsmanship. They have nodded their heads with approval at the cathedral 'judgments of Elihu Root; they have laughed to see a sick man flayed by the lashings of Henry Cabot Lodge, and they have secretly snickered over the, personal abuse flung at his head by Corinne R-oosevelt, Robinson, and George Harvey. It has been a famous Roman holiday. Nor can any present purpose be served by anticipating the , judgments, of history. Woodrow Wilson has been an austere First Citizen, but no more austere than Washington. He has been an obstinate «xecutive, but no more obstinate than Lincoln. Like them, he has been reviled. Like them, he has been charged with treason in office. Like them, he has been a supremely lonely man. But if we would know whether history regards these likenesses as .superficial or 1 fundamental, we must ask our children's children. ' ' ...

The guileless soul who'believed thatwar would purse and peace would purify: still sits by the ashes- of catastrophe, looking for the fabled Phoenix. To one whose wish fathered the thought.that the. United States would over-ride the experience of nature and achieve the moral leadership of the world by a gesture the months of the past year have been filled with disappointment. He hoped that the' obstinacy of the President and the fnry of the Senate might result in a compromise. He hoped that the Republican Party might name a candidate worthy of their singular opportunity. Instead they nominated Harding. He looked to the Democratic Party to march through the door left wide open by the enemy; but they, in turn, with matchless perversity, made merry with the guileless soul, and nominated Cox. Little light on this hardest of a.ll problems trickled through the summer months. So that the conscientious citizen, who regards the casting of his vote as a solemn privilege 'rather than a periodic nuisance, went to the polls on 2nd November with the air of a convict forced to choose between the unpleasant alternatives of death by hanging and death by life imprisonment.

After reviewing the election campaign and its results, the article conclndes: 2nd November, 1920, marked the -passing of Woodrow Wilson from the active political life of the United States. On 4th March he will leave the White House, and all the mystery and moment with which he: has.hedged it about will disappear. Its gat.es will stand open again; and speculators are already buy;ng' property in Washington in the belief that the city of magnificent distances will once more become the social centre of America under the courtly and benevolent directio" of President Harding and his wife. Government is a very simple thing after all," Harding' has said. But on the day when the senator becomes president, above the $nmu]t. and the 'shouting on Ca pl tol Hill, a small, unattended group will leave the White House. In their midst will be carried a man with snow-white hair, bowed back, distorted featnres and emaciated frame—a man with body broken and heart broken in the service of a great ideal—a man who knows that government is sot a simple thing after all.