m I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES The Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson The Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson BEING SELECTIONS FROM HIS THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ON POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND MORAL QUESTIONS COMPILED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES J. HEROLD NEW YORK BRENTANO'S MCMXIX Copyright, 1919, by Brentano's CONTENTS fcflft PREFACE, xv PATRIOTISM, 1 National reconciliation, 3 Practical patriotism, 3 Keeping a promise, 6 Physical and moral courage, 7 Turn to the future, 9 SOCIAL JUSTICE, 11 Shield wo.men and children, 13 Restore, not destroy, 14 Ideals lost, 14 Ease the burden, 15 Unfair competition, 16 Eight-hour day, 16 Railroads declined, 18 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, 21 Our standards, 23 Very few rise, 24 Lift it up, 24 A new age, 25 A revolution, 26 Changes needed, 26 PITHY SAYINGS, 29 Spirit of age, 31 Life and logic, 31 72G1G1 CONTENTS PITHY SAYINGS Continued Genuine speech, 32 Liars and truth, 33 The Constitution, 34 Gossips, 35 WOMAN SUFFRAGE, 37 Rapid growth, 38 Technical difficulties, 40 Will prevail, 40 Be patient, 42 THOUGHTS ON LITERATURE, 43 Prose and poetry, 45 Books and friends, 46 Praise of your own day, 46 Individuality, 47 Gibbon, 48 REMARKS OF THE EDUCATOR, 49 Motives in life, 51 A pathfinder, 52 A rebirth, 53 GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS, 55 Armed force, 57 Minority and majority, 57 Public opinion, 59 Degeneracy, 60 CONTENTS GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS Continued Illegitimate means, 61 President as spokesman, 61 Leader of his party, 62 Personal force, 63 No mere domestic figure, 63 Kaiser's powers, 64 State no evil, 65 Socialists and society, 65 Government an instrument, 66 The wisest thing, 67 Practical reforms, 67 The states, 68 Ti.e presidency, 69 Guide of the nation, 69 The unifying force, 70 PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES, 71 Radicalism, 73 Open processes, 73 The inventor, 74 The referendum, 74 Protective policy, 75 Owned by corporations, 75 Controlling class, 76 Abolish privilege, 76 Adjustment, 77 Crushing the weak, 77 CONTENTS PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES Continued Tariff revised, 78 Merchant marine recreated, 79 Played big brother, 81 No more provincialism, 81 - AMERICANISM, 83 America's vitality, 85 No guardian, 86 Is a person, 87 Our affair, 87 Fundamental things, 88 Nothing for herself, 89 Two theories, 91 Not a great American, 91 Providing prosperity, 92 Rejects trustee theory, 92 No wards wanted, 94 No groups, 94 Oath of allegiance, 96 Founded for humanity, 97 Prais* for Lincoln, 99 Assisted by experts, 99 True Americans, 100 Vicious discrimination, 101 Declaration of Independence, 103 Looking from the White House, 105 The world admired, 107 CONTENTS AMERICANISM Continued Irresistible competition, 108 The spirit of freedom, 108 In the wilderness, 111 Typical, 111 FOR HUMANITY, 113 Bring liberty to mankind, 115 Spirit of unselfishness, 116 A war of service, 117 Sample Americans, 118 Serving a people, 119 Lift his brother, 120 Surging up of new strength, 122 ECONOMIC PROBLEMS, 125 New banking system, 127 Must mobilize reserves, 128 Changes in fiscal laws, 129 Our merchant marine stunted, 130 Embodies convincing experience, 130 The world and American commerce, 132 INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, 135 Mexico and the future, 137 Policy of impartiality, 137 The Latin-American states, 139 Settled peace and good will, 141 PREFACE PREFACE WHAT are the strange powers that have made of a one- time teacher of youth a supreme lead- er of men, a universally acclaimed champion of freedom for all the world ? A well-stored mind, a pitiless logic, a retentive memory, a felicitous turn of phrase, a wisdom serene yet vibrant, a happy gift of coining aphorisms containing multum in parvo, a states- manlike grasp of affairs, an eloquent tongue that never fails, an interpreta- tion of advanced thought in an era fermenting with new ideas, a tireless energy and enormous driving force, when one speaks of these excellent and choice qualities, one has but scratched the surface. The core of his being, his inmost soul, has not been touched upon. In Woodrow Wilson is met that THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON rarest of human combinations con- sistency coupled with lucid vjsion, high ideals and crystal-pure sincerity. That furnishes the key to his singular char- acter. When his record is searched, when the four decades that have gone since he first drank knowledge at the bosom of his alma mater are scanned closely, the astounding discovery is made that the convictions, the longings of his early days are his convictions of to-day; that his ideals then are his ideals now; that the Americanism of his youth is also the Americanism of his manhood; that his love of country and of hu- manity has unvariedly remained the same in intensity, in kind, in loftiness of conception, in purity of purpose and in grandeur of aim. With increasing maturity his faith in the vision of his youth increased. Truly, the boy PREFACE dreamer, dreamed profoundly, for he awakened and found his dream world real. The germ of his gospel of world- peace and world-righteousness as it found final and finished expression in those fourteen points that are at this very hour the text for a body of this earth's most powerful statesmen to wrestle with, to ponder, and in the main to accede to, is to be seen in his earliest, still somewhat callow writ- ings, in his book on Congressional Government. The germ gradually de- velops and grows in size, but its essence remains the same. Like a scarlet thread it runs through the woof of all his subsequent political reflections, his essays, his political speeches, his lectures, his commentaries on international affairs, on the mission of America. Many years later, in his THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON book dealing with Constitutional Gov- ernment in the United States, the idea expands, shows deeper insight and more vigorous roots, and in The State, an admirable expose of governmental science and imbued with an enlightened humanitarianism, it has attained a further growth. Finally, in his ora- tions and addresses delivered since the outbreak of the war in the summer of 1914, the last fruition of it is seen in his "League of Nations," and in the principles laid down by him for a durable, just peace. True, the scope of his survey has widened; his eye now discerns in clearer outline what at first was beheld but dimly. His diction has gained in pith, in strength, in authority, and his images in color and variety. He has a firmer grasp of his subject, betraying the ceaseless thought given to it, and his PREFACE eye ranges a larger horizon. But his ideal is still the same. He proves true to his early loves: enlightened democ- racy, freedom for a shackled world, fraternal help to the purblind, strug- gling nations, whether near or far, the rule of the law throughout the two hemispheres. It is the dogma of America, of America at her best. It embraces jus- tice, justice even to the vanquished foe, justice tempered with mercy. It is a broadening of Lincoln's doctrine, an elaboration including all the peoples of the universe. No wonder that Abraham Lincoln dwells so firmly in Woodrow Wilson's heart, that he finds such high praise for him in his speech and in his writings : that he holds him, next to Washington, the greatest . American. For he himself is bone of Lincoln's bone, and flesh of his flesh. THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON But Woodrow Wilson's style pre- sents a marked contrast. It shows the wide and ripened culture of the man. It embraces all literature. It is pre- cise, ornate, full of metaphor, pictur- esque, scarcely ever homely, such as that of the great Illinoisan. It is not even homely when dallying with lighter fancy, with anecdote and fireside tale. Nevertheless, it possesses great charm. It teems with quotable sayings. And its fund of illustration is great. Serious, thoughtful, a vein of high morality tincturing it, the wisdom taught by Woodrow Wilson is yet never morose or esoteric, but highly practical. And of course, since his manhood as teacher and statesman has chiefly concerned it- self with political problems, it is there that the lessons he conveys are most potent and most pointed. NOTE Acknowledgment is hereby made to the following publishers for permission to quote from books published by them: Doubleday, Page & Co. ("The New Freedom") ; D. C. Heath & Co. ("The State") ; T. Y. Crowell Co. ("The Free Life") ; Houghton, Mifflin Co. ("Mere Litera- ture") ; Harper & Bros. ("On Being Human," ''When a Man Comes to Himself") ; and Columbia University Press ("Constitutional Government"). PATRIOTISM PATRIOTISM WE have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten except that we shall not forget the splendid valor, the manly devotion of the men then arrayed against one another, now grasping hands and smiling into each other's eyes. How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as State after State has been added to this our great family of free men! Delivered in the presence of Union and Con- federate veterans, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Gettys- burg, July 4, 1913. LIBERTY does not consist, my fellow-citizens, in mere general declarations of the rights of man. It THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action. We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill of particulars. It contains a bill of particulars, but the bill of particu- lars of 1776. If we would keep it alive, we must fill it with a bill of particulars of the year 1914. Patriot- ism consists in some very practical things practical in that they belong to the life of every day, that they wear no extraordinary distinction about them, that they are connected with common- place duty. The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love America but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand and know that in perform- ing it we are serving our country. It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our national life are and to face them with candor. It is not patriotic to concert meas- PATRIOTISM ures against one another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one another. In one sense the Declaration of Independence has lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a declara- tion of national independence. Nobody outside of America believed when it was uttered that we could make good our independence; now nobody any- where would dare to doubt that we are independent and can maintain our in- dependence. As a declaration of inde- pendence, therefore, it is a mere historic document. Our independence is a fact so stupendous that it can be measured only by the size and energy and variety and wealth and power of one of the greatest nations in the world. I would be ashamed of this flag if it ever did anything outside America that we would not permit it to do inside of America. THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer the honor of the country to its material interest. Would you rather be deemed by all the nations of the world incapable- of keeping your treaty obligations in order that you might have free tolls for American ships? The treaty under which we gave up that right may have been a mistaken treaty, but there was no mis- take about its meaning. When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation. The most distinguished nation in the world is the nation that can and will keep its promises even to its own hurt. A patriotic American is a man who is not niggardly and selfish in the things that he enjoys that make for human liberty and the rights of man. He wants to share them with the whole Keepin, a prom\ PATRIOTISM world, and he is never so proud of the great flag under which he lives as when it comes to mean to other people as well as to himself a symbol of hope. " The Meaning of Liberty," an address delivered at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914. NOBILITY exists in America with- out patent. We have no House of Lords, but we have a house of fame to which we elevate those who are the noble men of our race, who, forgetful of themselves, study and serve the public interest, who have the courage to face any number and any kind of adversary, to speak what in their hearts they believe to be the truth. We admire physical courage, but we admire above all things else moral courage. I believe that soldiers will THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON bear me out in saying that both come in time of battle. I take it that the moral courage comes in going into the battle, and the physical courage in stay- ing in. There are battles which are just as hard to go into and just as hard to stay in as the battles of arms, and if the man will but stay and think never of himself there will come a time of grateful recollection when men will speak of him not only with ad- miration but with that which goes deeper, with affection and with rev- erence. So that this flag calls upon us daily for service, and the more quiet and self-denying the service the greater the glory of the flag. We are dedicated to freedom, and that freedom means the freedom of the human spirit. Memorial Day Address, National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., May 30, 1914. PATRIOTISM M Y privilege is this, ladies and Turn to ^ . ' ~ ... the future gentlemen : I o declare this chap- ter in the history of the United States closed and ended, and I bid you turn with me with your faces to the future, quickened by the memories of the past, but with nothing to do with the contests of the past, knowing, as we have shed our blood upon opposite sides, we now face and admire one another. Address on accepting the monument in Memory of the Confederate Dead, June 4, 1914. SOCIAL JUSTICE SOCIAL JUSTICE WE have studied, as perhaps no other nation has, the most effective means of production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we should, either as organizers of in- dustry, as statesmen, or as individuals. Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which government may be put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding the health of the Nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence. This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vital- ity, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Restore, not destroy Ideals lost WE shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modi- fied, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self- satisfaction or the excitement of excur- sions whither they cannot tell. Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto. The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of SOCIAL JUSTICE ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. First Inaugural Address, 1913. IT is part of our philosophy it should be part of our statesman- ship, to ease the burden as we can, and enfranchise those who spend and are spent for the sustenance of the race. On Being Human. i6 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON THE modern industrial organiza- tion has so distorted competition as sometimes to put it into the power of some to tyrannize over many, as to enable the rich and the strong to com- bine against the poor and the weak. Unfair competi- tion Eight- hour day BUT the socialist mistakes: it is not competition that kills, but unfair competition, the pretense and form of it where the substance and real- ity of it cannot exist. The State, 1903. IT seemed to me, in considering the subject-matter of the controversy, that the whole spirit of the time and the preponderant evidence of recent economic experience spoke for the eight-hour day. It has been adjudged by the thought and experience of recent years a thing upon which society is SOCIAL JUSTICE justified in insisting as in the interest of health, efficiency, contentment, and a general increase of economic vigor. The whole presumption of modern ex- perience would, it seemed to me, be in its favor, whether there was arbitra- tion or not. I unhesitatingly offered the friendly services of the administration to the railway managers to see to it that justice was done the railroads in the outcome. I felt warranted in assuring them that no obstacle of law would be suffered to stand in the way of their increasing their revenues to meet the expenses resulting from the change so far as the development of their business and of their administrative efficiency did not prove adequate to meet them. The public and the representatives of the public, I felt justified in assuring them, were disposed to nothing but jus- 1 8 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON tice in such cases and were willing to serve those who served them. The representatives of the brother- hoods accepted the plan; but the rep- resentatives of the railroads declined to accept it. In the face of what I can- not but regard as the practical cer- tainty that they will be ultimately obliged to accept the eight-hour day by the concerted action of organized la- bor, backed by the favorable judgment of society, the representatives of the railway management have felt justified in declining a peaceful settlement which would engage all the forces of justice, public and private, on their side to take care of the event. There is one other thing we should do if we 'are true champions of arbi- tration. We should make all arbitral awards judgments by record of a court of law in order that their interpretation SOCIAL JUSTICE 19 and enforcement may lie, not with one of the parties to the arbitration, but with an impartial and authoritative tribunal. The Demands of Railway Employees an ad- dress at a joint session of Congress, August 29, 1916. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY WE have come now to the sober second thought. The scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have made up our minds to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always carried at our hearts. Our work is a work of restoration. THE great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people. THERE has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. First Inaugural Address, 1913. THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON Very few rise Lift it up MOST of us are average men; very few of us rise, except by fortunate accident, above the general level of the community about us; there- fore the man who thinks common thoughts, the man who has had com- ' mon experiences, is almost always the man who interprets America aright. THE nations are renewed from the bottom, not from the top. THE real wisdom of human life is compounded out of the experiences of ordinary men. PUBLICITY is one of the purifying elements of politics. THE best thing that you can do with anything that is crooked is to lift it up where people can see that it is crooked, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY and then it will either straighten itself out or disappear. LEGISLATION as we nowadays con- duct it, is not conducted in the open. WE have come upon a very dif- ferent age from any that pre- ceded us. We have come upon an age when we do not do business in the way we used to do business when we do not carry on any of the operations of manufacture, sale, transportation, or communication as men used to carry them on. There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been sub- merged. ONE of the most significant signs of the new social era is the degree to which government has become asso- ciated with big business. 26 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON A revo- lution Changes needed WE stand in the presence of a revolution, not a bloody revolution : America is not given to the spilling of blood, but a silent revolution, whereby America will insist upon recovering in practice those ideals which she has always professed, upon securing a government devoted to the general interest and not to special interests. SOME radical changes we must make in our law and practice. Some reconstructions we must push forward, which a new age and new circumstances impose upon us. But we can do it all in calm and sober fashion like statesmen and patriots. ONE of the worst features of the business system is this fact, that it works secretly. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 27 POLITICAL bosses are men who have worked their way by secret methods to the power they occupy. WE Americans have been too long satisfied with merely going through the motions of government. The New Freedom. PITHY SAYINGS PITHY SAYINGS EVERY man must, of course, wheth- er he will or not, feel the spirit of the age in which he lives and thinks and does his work; and the mere con- tact will direct and form hyn more or less. THERE is a greater thing than the spirit of the age, and that is the spirit of the ages. An Author's Choice of Company. LIFE quite overturns logic. Thinking and erudition alone will not equip for the great tasks and triumphs of life . . . DEFEAT lies in self-surrender. The Author Hint's elf. TRUE friendship is of a royal lineage. OUR true wisdom is in our ideals. THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON AND so the fountain of learning be- came the fountain of perpetual youth. The Free Life. THE age changes, and with it must change our ideas of human quality. WE need wholesome, experiencing natures, I dare affirm, much more than we need sound reasoning. Genuint speech SPEECH is genuine which is without silliness, affectation, or pretense. That character is genuine which seems built by nature rather than by convention. No age will take hysterical reform. As bad times as these, or any we shall see, have been reformed, but not by protests. PITHY SAYINGS IT is certainly human to mind your neighbor's business as well as your own. On Being Human, 1906. CHARACTER is a by-product, Y^y and any man who devotes him- self to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig. . . . Life, gentlemen the life of society, the life of the world has constantly to be fed from the bottom. . . . For, gentle- men, this is an age in which the prin- ciples of men who utter public opinion dominate the world. The Power of Christian Young Men, being an address- at the Anniversary Celebration of the r. M. C. A. I WOULD guarantee that if enough liars talked to you, you would get the truth; because the parts that they 34 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON did not invent would match one an- other, and the parts that they did in- vent would not match one another. Address before the United States Chamber of Commerce, February 3, 1915. SOMETIMES the country believes in a party, but more often it believes in THE President is becoming more and more a political and less and less an executive officer. The Con titution THE Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyer's document: it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. THERE have been periods of our history when presidential messages were utterly without practical significance. Constitutional Government in the U. S. PITHY SAYINGS I WOULD rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty. Address before the Southern Commercial Con- gress, October 27, 1913. GOSSIPS are only sociologists upon a mean and petty scale. WE should have passed by this time the Homeric stage of mind should have heroes suited to our age. COULD any man hesitate to say that Abraham Lincoln was more human than William Lloyd Garrison? WE are glad to see earnest men laugh. It breaks the strain. On Being Human. 36 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON CERTAINLY modern individualism has much about it that is hateful, too hateful to live. IT should be the end of government to assist in accomplishing the objects of organized society. The State. WOMAN SUFFRAGE WOMAN SUFFRAGE 39 THE astonishing thing about the Ra ? id o & growth movement which you represent is, not that it has grown so slowly, but that it has grown so rapidly. No doubt for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you think of the cumulating force of this movement in recent decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing tides in modern history. Two generations ago, no doubt Madam President will agree with me in saying, it was a handful of wom- en who were fighting this cause. Now it is a great multitude of women who are fighting it. THE whole conception of govern- ment when the United States be- came a Nation was a mechanical con- THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON Tech diffia n ical ilties Will prevail ception of government, and the me- chanical conception of government which underlay it was the Newtonian theory of the universe. THERE was a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to run the Government of the United States, and a distinguished English publicist once remarked, speaking of the complexity of the American Gov- ernment, that it was no proof of the excellence of the American Constitution that it had been successfully operated, because the Americans could run any constitution. But there have been a great many technical difficulties in run- ning it. IT is going to prevail, and that is a very superficial and ignorant view of it which attributes it to mere WOMAN SUFFRAGE 41 social unrest. It is not merely be- cause the women are discontented. It is because the women have seen visions of duty, and that is something which we not only cannot resist, but, if we be true Americans, we do not wish to resist. America took its origin in vis- ions of the human spirit, in aspirations for the deepest sort of liberty of the mind and of the heart, and as visions of that sort come up to the sight of those who are spiritually minded in America, America comes more and more into her birthright and into the perfection of her development. OUR political questions have ceased to be legal questions. They have more and more become social questions, questions with regard to the relations of human beings to one an- other not merely their legal relations, THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON but their moral and spiritual relations to one another. So that what we have to realize in dealing with forces of this sort is that we are dealing with the substance of life itself. Be patient I HAVE not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there was a force behind you that will beyond peradventure be triumph- ant, and for which you can afford a little while to wait. Address at the National Women's Suffrage Con- vention in 1916. THE whole art and practice of gov- ernment consists not in moving indi- viduals, but in moving masses. Address at Atlantic City, September 8, 1916. THOUGHTS ON LITERA- TURE THOUGHTS ON LITERATURE SOME books live; many die; where- in is the secret of immortality ? Not in beauty of form, nor even in force of passion. We might say of literature what Wordsworth said of poetry. . . . Poetry has the easier immortality because it has the easier accent when it speaks, because its phrases linger in our ears to delight them, because its truths are also melo- dies. Prose has much to overcome, its plainness of visage, its less musical accents, its homelier turns of phrase. But it also may maintain the immortal essence of truth and seriousness and high thought. Mere Literature, 1913. MUCH the most pathetic thought about books is that excellence will not save them. Their fates will be as whimsical as those of the humankind THE W T ISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON which produces them. Knaves find it as easy to get remembered as good men. Books and friends THE world is attracted by books as each man is attracted by his several friends. The Author Himself. Praise of your own day GREAT authors are not often men of fashion. Fashion is always a harness and restraint, whether it be fashion in dress or fashion in vice or fashion in literary art; and a man who is bound by it is caught and formed in a fleeting mode. The great writers are always innovators. THE praise of your own day is no absolute disqualification; but it may be if it be given for qualities which your THOUGHTS ON LITERATURE friends are the first to admire, for 'tis likely they will also be the last No man who has anything to say need stop and bethink himself whom he may please or displease in the say- ing of it. An Author's Choice of Company. INDIVIDUALITY does not consist in the use of the very personal pronoun, I : it consists in tone, in method, in attitude, in point of view. IT is best for the author to be born away from literary centres, or to be excluded from their ruling set if he be born in them. IF you have a candid and well- informed friend among city lawyers, ask him where the best masters of his THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON profession are bred, in the city or in the country. He will reply without hesitation, "In the country." You will hardly need to have him state the reason. THE idea of slavery hovers over (Gibbon's) Decline and Fall. Fancy a stiffly dressed gentleman, in a stiff chair, slowly writing that stiff com- pilation in a stiff hand: it is enough to stiffen you for life. The Author Hints elf. REMARKS OF THE EDUCATOR REMARKS OF THE EDUCATOR 1PITY the man who cannot look back to those delicious sequestered places from which we first saw the world, that dear covert made by mothers' and fathers' love and kept in- violable by all the gentle arts of guar- dian care. PRACTICAL judgments shift from age to age, but principles abide; and more stable even than principles are the motives which simplify and en- noble life. The Free Life. m ^ IT is again a day for Shakespeare's spirit a day more various, more ar- dent, more provoking to valor and every large design, even than "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," when all the world seemed new . A path- finder THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON LET us remind ourselves that to be human is, for one thing, to speak and act with a certain note of genuineness, a quality mixed of spontaneity and intelligence. No man is genuine who is forever trying to pattern his life after the lives of other people. MAN is much more than a "rational being," and lives more by sympathies and impressions than by conclusions. KEEP but your eyes alert and your ears quick, as you move among men, and among books, and you shall find yourself possessed at last of a new sense, the sense of the pathfinder. THE art of being human begins with the practice of being genuine, and REMARKS OF THE EDUCATOR 53 following standards of conduct which the world has tested. WE shall need a new Renaissance, ushered in by a new "human- istic" movement, in which we shall add to our present minute, introspec- tive study of ourselves, our jails, our slums, our nerve-centres, our shifts to live, almost as morbid as mediaeval religion, a rediscovery of the round world, and of man's place in it, now that its face has changed. On Being Human. GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS GOVERNMENT, in its last analysis, is organized force. Not necessarily or invariably armed force. ... It is, however, organized to rule, to domi- nate. IN the case of any particular govern- ment, the force upon which the authority of its officers rests may never once for generations together take the shape of armed force. Happily there are in our own day many governments, and those among the most prominent, which seldom coerce their subjects, seeming in their tranquil, noiseless operations to run of themselves . . . But there is force behind them none the less because it never shows itself. THE better governments of our day those which rest, not upon the armed strength of governors, but 58 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON upon the free consent of the governed are founded upon constitutions and laws whose source and sanction are the habit of communities. The force which they embody is not the force of a dominant dynasty or of a prevalent minority, but the force of an agreeing majority. And the overwhelming na- ture of this force is evidently the fact that the minority very seldom chal- lenges its exercise. It is latent just because it is understood to be omnipo- tent. THERE is force behind the au- thority of the elected magistrate, no less than behind that of the usurp- ing despot, a much greater force behind the President of the United States than behind the Czar of Russia. The difference lies in the display of coercive power. Physical force is the GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS prop of both, though in the one it is the last, while in the other it is the first, resort. IT is common nowadays when re- ferring to the affairs of the most progressive nations to speak of "gov- ernment by public opinion." . . . But no one intends such expressions to con- ceal the fact that the majority . . . does not prevail because the minority are convinced, but because they out- numbered and have against them not the "popular voice" only, but the "popular power" as well, that it is the potential might rather than the wisdom of the majority which gives it its right to rule. SOCIETY is compounded of the com- mon habit and is an evolution of ex- perience, an interlaced growth of tena- 6o THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON cious relationships, a compact, living, organic whole, structural, not me- chanical. OLIGARCHY is even more hateful to civil liberty, is even a greater hind- rance to healthful civil life than tyranny. Degen~ eracy DEMOCRACY, too, has its old age of degeneracy an old age in which it loses its early respect for law, its first "amiability" of mutual con- cession. It breaks out into license and anarchy, and none but a Caesar can bring it back to reason and order. SOCIETY is not the organism it once was, its members are given freer play, fuller opportunity for origination; but its organic character is again promi- nent. The State. GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS THERE are illegitimate means by which the President may influ- ence the action of Congress. . . . He may overbear Congress by arbitrary acts which ignore the laws or virtually override them. . . . Such things are not only deeply immoral, they are de- structive of the fundamental under ; standings of constitutional govern- ment. . . . They are sure, more- over, in a country of free public opin- ion, to bring their own punishment, to destroy both the fame and the power of the man who dares to practice them. THE nation as a whole has chosen the President, and is conscious that it has no other political spokes- man. His is the only national voice in affairs. Let him once win the ad- miration and confidence of the coun- 62 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON try, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him. Leader of his party A PRESIDENT whom the nation trusts can not only lead it, but form it to his own views. . . . He may be both the leader of his party and the leader of the nation, or he may be one or the other. If he lead the nation, his party can hardly resist him. His office is anything he has the sagacity and force to make it. IF the matter be looked at a little more closely, it will be seen that the office of the President, as we have used it and developed it, really does not demand actual experience in affairs so much as particular qualities of mind and character which we are at least GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS as likely to find outside the ranks of our public men as within them. IF the President has personal force and cares to exercise it there is this tremendous difference between his messages and the views of any other citizen, either outside Congress or with- in it: that the whole country reads them and feels that the writer speaks with an authority and a responsibility which the people themselves have given him. r I ^HE President can never again be A the mere domestic figure he has been throughout so large a part of our history . . . Our President must always henceforth be one of the great powers of the world, whether he act greatly and wisely or not, and the best 6 4 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON statesmen we can produce will be needed to fill the office of secretary of state. Constitutional Government in the United States. Kaiser's powers T I iHE constitutional prerogatives of A the German Emperor are of the most eminent kind. Unlike other presidents, he is irresponsible: he can- not be removed. . . . He has, in brief, to the fullest extent, both the executive and the representative func- tions now characteristic of the head of a powerful constitutional state. . . . Adding, as he does, to his powers as hereditary president of the Empire his commanding privileges as king of Prus- sia ... he possesses no slight claim to be regarded as the most powerful ruler of our time. GOVERNMENTAL MAXIMS THE State is no more an evil than is society itself. It is the organic body of society: without it society would be hardly more than a mere abstraction. If the name had not been restricted to a single, nar- row, extreme, and radically mistaken class of thinkers, we ought all to re- gard ourselves and to act as socialists, believers in the wholesomeness and beneficence of the body politic. THE schemes which Socialists have proposed society cannot accept and live, and no scheme which involves the complete control of the individual by government can be devised which differs from theirs very much for the better. 66 THE WISDOM OF WOODROW WILSON case for society stands thus: JL the individual must be assured the best means, the best and fullest opportunities, for complete self-devel- opment. In no other way can society itself gain variety and strength. GOT inst