“SAFETY FIRST.”

Mataura Ensign, 3 May 1919, Page 2

“SAFETY FIRST.”

WILSON ON TrtE SCALES. STATESMAN~OR POLITICIAN ? NATIONAL POLICY BY PRIVATE WIRE. [Whoever they he. who worship Wilson, - frank A. Russell, who contributes the following estimate to the Sydney ‘Sun,’ is not-of the adoring number. It is possible thai. .'the- number will steadily shrink.] In the spring of 1010 the writer stood upon'the steps of tho War Depart rnent, in Washington and watched a spare, a sect ie-looking man lead a imicU-ueilngged procession past, cheering thousands. The leader was President Wilson, and his act. was an act of penance, perhaps the. most significant in ihc word that day. For the procession represented the recanting on his part of a most dangerous and heretical doctrine, which for 12 months he had been preaching with almost: religions fervor --the dostrinc of unprepared ness. And now a. deliriously excited throng was cheering the beginning of a campaign to, prcj>are America for doing something more than merely making her voice heard. It was time, for that verv morning one of the. high officials of the War Department remarked with bitterness that appeared entirely natural that fho stun at the disposal of the eountry T for heavy artillery amounted to tho gigantic total of -111 dollars. And it may he. remarked parenthetically, whilst that procession was marching, responsible heads were anxiously awaiting a wire that should tell whether there was to he peace or war in Mexico, \yith the odds heavily in favor (if war.

WILSON’S CLAT.US TO PRAISE. A generation from now history wil he passing in teview the great one,of. our own time. Will her verdict coincide, with that of the populace which to-day is acclaiming this or that leader with’the title of - Heaven-horn statesman’’ or •‘military genius” ? It is a delicate task to affix a label for all time, ami many snap judgments, formed under a stimulus of graiiture or disappointment, will he reversed when tile perspective becomes better. To-day thousands of newspapers are bidding* their readers to recognise in President Wilson the genuine successor to Washington and Lincoln, and, save perhaps in Ids own Senate House, he is the most wildly applauded man in the world. Adulation must have recourse to the most famous names of statescraft in order to make this idol undcrstanded of the people' Men think only in terms of comparison. Our only standard of measurement is our own great giants of tho past. Does tip's newcomer reach these heights? It is allowable to examine Ids claims, whilst

leaving (o posterity the task of fixing them. We are grateful in the American people. To thoir immense enthusiasm, and their enormous potentialities, we ‘undoubtedly owe the unexpected termination of tlie war. It is far from the purpose of this, article to belittle the aehievements of a splendid nation. JJnt, conceding all this. it is yet right uiasir. What'is the claim of the President to tlie extravagant laudations of me world?” is lie a statesman of the first rank, or is he a party politician, who after grave errors of judgment has been fortunate enough not to pay thy penally of mistake, but to he loreeu into tiie position of leader in a crisis which hi* own weakness precipitated':' THIS NATION AND ITS LKADKR. History will nni ho misled hy admiral ion of a nation into weak praise of iis leader. Why should we, unless there, exist proofs that sagacity of a very high order saw three moves ahead of the. game, and cheerfully boro misrepresentation and obloquy in order the better to weld into a mighty weapon the differing elements in a divided country To establish a right to the title of a great statesman a man must he more than possessed ol a. splendid integrity, more than absolutely well-meaning. There are connoted a far-sightedness, a treedom from 'parochialism, a worldview of world-happenings,, an ability to deduce future possibilities from present indications, and finally the will to determine to prepare for such possibilities, in the face of a whole nation blind and deaf to them.' To err is human, hut when there is made a blunder of such colossal proportions that the results- flowing from it are catastrophic the blunderer must answer for it to posterity, which will invariably deny to him the laurels which should grace the brows of bim only whose success is' absolute'. '• Splendid failure in the light for achievement commands the admiration that ever waits on spirited attempting, but ibis must not be confused with the failure Unit results from the action of a lender who bus been proved too weak for his task. THE C’.iT AND ITS .TUMP. The President has a conception of leadership which hears in it tlie seeds of failure. In a crisis he avowedly wa'its for an expression of the popular will. It may be conceded that since the United States entered the war he appears to have abandoned this polity Put fie has .himself announced that his surest guide to action was the talk of the American citizen on his own hearth. To such lengths did he cany this policy that on the recurrence of each, weekly crisis during the latter half of lltlo and the following year the Ger-niun-American societies ami their Irish brethren bound their memliers to despatch to the White House a certain number of telegrams per mendier from all over the country, ami when the press asked for an indication of the ait ion of the President it was gravely told hy the Secretary to the President that telegrams to the number of oO.OUO per day had come, to the White House, all appealing against the arbitrament of war. Amt these were taken as an expression of the public mind on the question. Such a policy may be democratic. Ft sounds more like Safety first!” jj certainly .is not statesmanship. It was playing'with tlie credit of the nation, lor it. *so hapj>ened that the country which came into the war with protestations that it was in the cause of humanity, and whose soldiers were dubbed Crusaders, actually side-stepped every issue that would have brought them in on that high moral plane, such as the Lusitania- outrage, the Helgian and Armenian atrocities, and the countless proved abominations of German agents on United States territory, and finally took up arms on tire specific issue of the menace to American overseas trading, as shown by the German war zone manifesto. If one thing can be more certain than another it. is this—the duly of a leader is to lead, not to follow.