THREE YEARS AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Evening Star, Issue 16196, 18 August 1916, Page 2

THREE YEARS AT THE WHITE HOUSE

f, PRESIDENT WILSON'S PLAIN SPEECH. President Wilson made public a frank and intimate review of his three years i". ino White Houso and his impressions of foreign and domestic problem?, delivered confidentially recently before Washington correspondents gathered at (he National Press Club. He spoke of the difficulties of the Presidency, and particularly of the motives which have, guided his Impelling of the Europ-ctMi situation. He spoke thus: America is for peace, because she loves peace, and believes the present war has carried the nations so far that they cannot be heid to ordinary standards of" respousibilty. But the United Slates has grown to be one of the great nations of the world, and therefore must act more or less from the. point of view of the rest of the world. If I cannot retain my moral in(bience over a man except by knocking him down occasionally—if that is the oniy Liasis on which lie will respect me—then for the sake of his soul I have got occasionally to knock him down. I have been a wasp at- nights considering the European situation, because there might come n. time when the T'nilerl States would have to do what I did not- desire to do, and " the. great burden on my spirits has hern that ic. )ms been up to me to choose when that .time Came.** He did not conceive that he had been elected President to do as he pleased. "\lf 1 were it would have been, very much more interesting," he said. Impressions of puhlic mtn as a class were given frankly by the President, with the comment, that some grew and some swelled. He also discussed ihe relations of the newspapers to Ihe affairs of 'the nation, and sounded a warning that falso information about foreign affairs was more than likely to lead to trouble. The President's remarks, as originally delivered, were read by him carefully before being made public, but no important portions were eliminated, and the wording was not changed substantially.