Passes, March 4th beyond public applause and scorn, from out the cartoonist's brain and politician's head, one Woodrow Wilson, erstwhile Coiner of Catchwords, moral White Hope of the World and President of these United States of America.
And so as he ducks out of the spotlight let us recall how he "strutted and fretted his hour on the stage." What an hour it was! Skimming the "Watchful Waiting" period when we were "too proud to fight" we rise at an alarmingly steep incline to the "privilege of shedding America's blood." How this privilege was availed of is now history. So passionately did the idea take on with the civilian population that it became the fashion to boil in oil on suspicion of Teutonic sympathy; while any but the most reverend mention of the president's name was — Lèse Majesté. All doubt should be forthwith dispelled, once and for all, as to the efficacy of advertising.
Commander in Chief of The Army and Navy, virtual Dictator of the Allied Forces, he was. Not Caesar, nor Alexander, nor all the Popes and Sultans of the Ages have ever had such sway as he then held; while his vassals and underlords slapped opinion into shape, muffled the acousticon of whispered doubts as to their own godlike omniscience and stirred the stewpot of hatred with untiring arms.
Then the victory of the armies and the truce. Day of days, when he stepped like Xerxes from the regilded Martha Washington onto the carpet laid on the docks of Brest between the stiffened ranks of trick soldiers at "present arms." On a acclamé le Président Wilson à Paris, and all over Europe and the World as the one who would dole justice to all and spike the cannon forever.
Why draw the fly from out its suddenly transparent ointment — the academician befuddled between two international sharps? Why re-tell how he fell so vertically from public grace? More humane it is now to smile at the fashion in which he bilked them all, the wise ones of earth no less than the clods.
President Woodrow Wilson passes. What will happen to him is no hard conjecture. He will write.
As for us, we turn a fresh page of the ledger. Without disputing apotheosizers we offer a ready palm to Dr. Wilson, the writer. Welcome, brother of the bleeding stylus. President Wilson — Ave atque Vale.