Carolina to Honor Wilson, Virginian

Birthday of Twenty-eighth President, December 28,
Held State Holiday, But Unmarked Here

By Norman Schlicter

Americans in the South, especially in South Carolina, easily remember that December 28 is the birthday of Woodrow Wilson, since that State has a holiday in his honor. But many other Americans do not remember so well, and in these days of the very vocal New Deal it is easier than ever to forget that this former President accomplished wonderful social reforms.

Only those blinded hopelessly by party bias will fail to give Woodrow Wilson the credit he deserves for his courage and tireless determination in bringing about much for the social good of our country.

He fought single-handed mostly for the things he conceived to be beneficial to his fellow countrymen.

I once heard Dr. John R. Mott, a trusted friend and adviser, Wilson's choice for his successor as president of Princeton University, refer to him as "that lonely man in the White House."

His work in connection with a strong League of Nations which was peculiarly his, has overshadowed his other national efforts to bring about greater everyday happiness to millions.

Although often thought of as an intellectual, cold type of man Wilson was indeed very human and had a great passion for righting social wrongs.

His father had been a poor man, and he himself, during the first years of his married life, kept house on but $1,000 a year. He never forgot those experiences which awakened in him deep sympathy for every one of his fellow men who has had to struggle to make ends meet. And this he knew was the condition of the vast majority of our working people. Of course, he well knew that they were much better off at the worst than they would have been in any other country on earth.

While he didn't succeed in making the world safe for democracy, nevertheless he had a passion for this form of government that was as deep as any American ever possessed, and it was this passion that led him to take an interest in the betterment of the common man.

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Let us not forget, especially on this birthday anniversary, that it was Wilson who achieved by his enthusiastic leadership and fighting spirit national workmen's compensation laws, the elimination of child labor to a greater degree than ever attained before him, the seamen's act, for which he has the everlasting gratitude of our men who sail the seas for a livelihood; and the eight-hour day as basic in industry he brought about.

Since money questions are the most prominent before us now we must also keep Wilson in mind as the one who gave us the Federal Reserve Act, and who led the fight for the most effective of our anti-trust laws.

It was my privilege to see in Paris the demonstrations of the French masses for this man who was considered after the great war and up to the time of his tragic passing the world's greatest peace idealist.

I had also the unpleasant experience, because he was my President, of seeing the Italian masses, who had received him with incomparable acclaim only a few months before, vent their wrath against him as a result of his views on the status of their city Fiume during the peace conference.

It was indeed a convincing demonstration of the vicissitudes of political fame. Streets that had been named for him in all the chief cities were rechanged back to their old names.

As time throws light on this incident it was one of the situations in which the Scotch in him didn't do its duty.

He once explained to George Creel, who was suprprised at his very great slowness and care in making his decisions for one so outwardly impetuous, "The Irish in me is forever crying, 'Up and at 'em, Woodrow!' But you must remember that half of me is Scotch. And the Scotch always reaches out, grabs me by the coat tail, and says, 'Better wait a minute, Woodrow, and see where you are going.' "

In this case his abstract theory may have been right but it was the wrong time to apply to it, and the President had had to compromise it in one or two conspicuous instances before Fiume dispute came up for settlement. And it was these compromises that were the fuel for the flames of patriotic passion skillfully fed by Italian leaders, especially D'Annunzio, the poet.

Others, who should know, also explain his haste and hot-headedness in this situation as the result of the nervous strain that was already beginning to end in the complete collapse later on.

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Speaking of Mr. Creel, so recently in the national spotlight as Upton Sinclair's opponent, few men knew Wilson better than he did, or had better chances to know him as President.

"The thing that most impressed me was his naturalness, his perfect simplicity," Mr. Creel once wrote a few years after Wilson's death. "One afternoon my secretary burst in the door, his face white, and stuttered the news that the 'P-P-P-President was outside. Mr. Wilson followed him, and after shaking hands said he had been walking by and thought he'd stop in to see what sort of quarters I had fixed up for myself.

" 'Come on, now,' he laughed, as I leaped up and began pushing chair around, 'don't treat me like company.' "

In the same writeup Mr. Creel also tells another story that illustrates the humanity of the President, who was destined to carry one of the greatest loads that any human spirit in the history of mankind has had to bear.

It was when suffragettes were picketing the White House and carrying banners that berated the President for his refusal to make Congress submit a consitutional amendment. They had gone the limit in their abuse of the President on a particular cold afternoon. "I found Mr. Wilson," says Mr. Creel, "at the front window of the White House, much worried lest those women should catch cold.

" 'Go out there,' he said, calling a servant, 'and ask those women if they won't come inside. It's not a day for them to be out.' "

Time has already tested the value of the many good things in the new deal which Woodrow Wilson helped our Government to give us. These very words, now so common, New Deal, should help all Americans to remember his birthday with grateful hearts.

When will Virginia, his native State, follow South Carolina's tribute to Woodrow Wilson?