8/9/2019 February 3, 1924

1/3

The

Nation

[Vol.

118

No. 3058

A n d so, once upon a t ime , there came out o f t he v ine -

yards ospeakbrave

wo r d s

onea s

with

a s i l ver ongue .

Y o u n g and old , r i ch and poor , s topped the i r work , ga ther -

ing

in t he marke t -p lace , saying: Behold , there

s

one who

t e l l s t h e

truth.

D o

y o u n o t s e e t h a t h e

is

n o t

of

t h e P h i l i s -

t i n e s ? L e t us l i s tenandbeguided

o f

him. W h e n e v m h e

s p o k e m e n e ch oe d h i s

w o r d s

so t h a t m o r e a n d m o r e c a m e

t o l i s t e n

and

t o r e v e r e . W h e n

alJ

t h e t r i b e s o f I s r a e l we n t

t o war it c a m e o

pass

that his w o r d s w i n g e d h e i r w a y

wh e r e v e r b a t t l e d a n d wo m e n s u f f e r e d ;

as

m e n

y

dy-

ing of

t h e i rw o u n d s h e yc r i e d out t o him t oprevai l in

order that none o ther s might p e r i s h u n t o h e m s e l v es .

W i d o w s with s t w v i n g b a b e s at t he i rbreas ts called do wn

bless ings upon his name. S e r f sand bond-s laves l i f ted u p

t he i rvo icesbe foreh i s m a g e , a y i n g : L o , H eh a sc o m e

again. A n d w h e n h e d a y d a w n e d w h e n m e n o u g h t n o

m o r e , a n d h e we n t a b r o a d , h u m b l e f o l k k n e e l e d d o wn b e f o r e

him, crying:

T h o u art t h e

man

Y e t o n e

day

f a l l ing upon ev i l companions ,

his

s t r e n g t h

and w i s d o m w e n t o u t rom him

and

3 ~ i s oice was o longer

as t h e r u m p e t sbe fore er i cho . Conce iv ing rea t l y e

y ie ldedgreat l y ,do ingwrong in t h eh o p e h a ts o m e i t t e

g o o d m i g h t c o m e .Behold ing , hepeoplecr i ed:He s

longer he Mess iah that h e wa s .

D o

you

n o t perce ive how

n o w

he

s w i k e sh a n d s

with

t h o s ew h oh a v em i s l e d us?

S o o nwe r eheard amenta t ions hroughout he land. M e n

beat upon the i r breas t s , dec lar ing that w o e w a s t h e i r s ,

that

Carkness

was

n o w

i n d dd

u p o n a l l

His

people, and

that

t h e r e w a sn o i g h t u p o n h e wa t e r s . R e t u r n i n g h e n c e t o

his

ow n tr ib e, men,, cas t him a s i d e , s a y i n g : T h o u h a s t n o

l o n g e r t h e v o i c e o f t h y o t h e r

days;

w e a r e b e t r a y e d

and

b y

t h e e s h a l l w e b e

Sd

n o more.

B

/

w

O D R O W

-WILSON came into he political lif e

of

America-as if in response t o prayer.

It

wasgiven

to him as to no other to step suddenly out of a cloistered

life ntohigh office. Then, as today, the re wasprofound

dis trus t of those conducting the overnment; tartling

revelations had aid bare both the corruption in big busi-

ness and thecontrol of th e government by those in the seats

of the commercial mighty. Nei the r the spu rious liberalism

nor t he halfway, compromising reforms of Theodore Roose-

velt, withhis ncessant knocking-down of men of straw,

had satisfied the though tfu l or cut deeply into our politi-

cal sores. To Mr. Wilson, a s he once remarked in t he office

of

T h e N a t i o n

during his governorship, what the country

needed was a modified Rooseveltism

;

what he preached

was not only that , but a far gre ate r vision of reform, with

a

f a r keener and ruer analysis of what was wrong. This

he set forth with an extraordinarykill and eloquence which

placed him in the front rank of Amer ican orators of

his

or

of any time-by th e beauty of his language , the wealth of

his imagery, the aptnes s of his illustrations, and the cogency

.of his arguments.

His modified Rooseveltism seemed to he business

mlasters of America fa r more dangerous than the doctrines

of Roosevelt himself; hey had known how to get around

the la tter when the pinch came. Wilson was of

a

different

type. Therewas none of the swashbucklerand fa r more

of the true crusade r in him; his lips set in different and

more dangerous lines ; his eyes blazed with a different fire;

here was all the stubbornness

of

the Scotch-Irishman with

a Roundheads absolute fa it h n he completeness

of

his

wisdom and he infallibility of his udgment.Plainly he

was not to be trifled with, and the way he wen t aft er the

New Jerseyorporationswithis seven-sisters?aws

boded ill fo r big business everywhere. Whey the election o

1912 came Wall Street was ll at ease. Taf t, ts favorite,

could not win

;

so the choice lay between the wildness of

Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who, as former president f

one of the sta idest and most conserva tive of universities,

theverycitadel of intrenchedwealth, should have been

safe and sane, yet was nothi

g

of the kind. When big busi-

ness men examined

Mr.

I kons speeches and his book

TheNewFreedom, the ir hai r bristled. Her e was adi-

calism ndeed.Hedeclared th at he governmenthad been

transferred from Washington to Wall Street, whither the

President must go hat n hand for orders. He affirmed

that the strong have crushed the weak, and that there -

fore the strong dominate he ndustry and he economic

life of thi s country.

Our

government he asserted t o be

under he control a heads of g rea t alliedcorporations

with special interests. Again and again he-cried out: We

stand in- he presence of a revolution

.

. whereby America

will ins ist upon recovering in practice hose idealswhich

she has always professed, upon securing a government de-

voted t o th e general intere sts and not to special interests.

We are upon the eve of a grea t reconstruction. Since an

invisible empire had been set above the forms of democ

racy Mr. Wilson demanded an end t o the exploitation o f

the people by legal and political means, saying the mas-

ters

of

the government of the United State s are the com-

bined capitalis ts and manufacturers of t he United States.,

This was reason,and when Mr. Wilsonentered the

White House the severance between

it

and Wall Street was

complete. The members of J P. Morgan Co. were for the

first time denied dmission to he Presidents office. S o

f a r a s

Mr.

Wilson could make it his was government

of

the people and in its intere sts. To him men rallied

in

in-

creasing numbers, even

of

the disappointed bands who had

followed Colonel Roosevelt to defeat with fervent personal

idolatryand a religious nthusiasmunsurpassed nour

history. Mr. Wilsons followers were actuated less by adora-

tion of him than by admiration for his ideals; yet here

were plenty to give him

a

personal devotion and loyalty such

as men a re capable of but once in t hei r lives. This kept up

even though a change rapidly came over the President. As

Governor of New Jersey he had sat in an office where

all

might see him and approach

;

n the WhiteHouse he became

less and ess accessible. Whatwasprobably- a n uncon-

querable shyness was coupled with much intellectual pride

and elentlessbitterness owardall who disagreed.

friendship could survive ong when th e other par ty o

le

criticized thePresident. It became more nd more his

habit owork alone. Thus it came about that when the

Lusitania sunk the note that satisfied the country yet

kept it calm was written in his closet without personal con-

tact with any members of h is Cabinet until it was read

them

f o r

the ir approval only-not for hei rcriticism

or

advice.

In

this

it

resembled manyanother tate paper.

Progress here was. The ederal-reservesystemcame

in ime o ake up the shocko f the outbreak

of

the war;

@

8/9/2019 February 3, 1924

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Feb.

13 19241 The

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157

a system- of ruralcreditswasestablished; herewas a

rea l tariff revision downward; a beginning was made of

a

mostopeful series of arbit ratio nreaties.The whole

atmosphere

of

th e government hanged fu r he better.

Then came the catastrophe of catast rophes, cutt ing squarely

across the pat hway to domestic reform, to end Mr. Wilsons

bloodless revolution. His first step s after the war clouds

.broke were all good; he commanded for th e coun try a neu-

C tr a li t y in thought and deed which he himself a t

first

lived

up to. Hi s unusualexecutive talentswere at their best.

Bu t the old spell was broken. Declining

Mr.

Bryans God-

given suggestion fo r an organization of

the

neutral coun-

tries headed by the UnitedStates,

t o

compel respect

f o r

neutr al rig hts and the n to compel peace,

Mr.

Wilson gradu-

ally violated his own precepts for Americanneutrality.

The powerful note to Great Britain in protest againstthe

seizure of American ships on the high seas-the Solicitor

5f

he State Department declaring ublicly

at

this time that

there was not a canon of international awwhichEng-

land had not violated, a statement now admitted by Eng-

lishmen-lay upon Wilsons desk from May, 1915, u t i 1

November, finally t o be sent so emasculated that its author

in the State Depa rtme nt ould hardly have recognized it As

Mf. Tumulty finally confessed in his book, the scales were

no longer held even. Yet when eekingeelectiou, Mr.

Wilson eagerly benefited by t he slogan

*he

kept us out

of

war, only t o violate later this implicit pact wit h hi speople.

On January 22 1917, Mr. Wilson rose o the highe st

point of his often exirao rdinary intuition and of his states-

manship. The n he gav e utt era nce to words of profoundest

wisdom, acclaimed a t th e ti me by almost the ent ire pre ss

of t he country-these w or ds th at have been justified en

thousand imes over byeveryevent since the reaty of

peace

must be a peace s

t o

saw to

and

t o

so t

losers,

a

be accepted

n

leave

u

a

of

peace

wo u ld

rest as u p o n

a peace last.

The crimes of Versailles, th e collapsing tre aty which- has

made tha t name nfamous, att est he profoundandper-

petu al trut h of these words. There is no prophecy in his-

tory

so

justified by he event,

so

marvelous in its tragic

fulfilment.

Three months later the breach of fa ith was complete.

America entered the war. -Wilson, the champion of democ-

racy, struck i t one of the deadliest blows received since the

theory o democracy was conceived. Th at fa ta l dayevery

refor m for which

Mr.

Wilson had contended lay prostrate.

For the

first

time he foundhimself congratulated by Henry

e a b o t Lodge, warmly ndorsed ndvisitedbyTheodore

Roosevelt, fo r whom there wag in his heart the bitte rest

hate. He was acclaimed wit h joy by every munition-maker,

every war profiteer, every agen t of big business, all the evil

forces ag ainst which he had foug ht f or the new freedom.

To the partn ers of J P. Morgan

Co.

the White-Eouse

doors now swungwide open. Positions of th e highest

sponsibility were given to them ; they wer e among his most;

~ trusted advisers at Pa ri s. When th.: ? x nded the control

of the government by big business and the war profiteers

was complete-the gi ft of Woodrow Wilson himself.

What it was that won Mr. Wilson over to the war is not

yet clear. It is the great unsolved mystery of his career.

Whether

it

was due to the desire he cherished fro m

1914

on to be the arbite r and dominator of the peace, whether

it

was

a yielding to the pr essure

of

those who deemed the

millions they had invested in Allied secur ities doomed un-

less the Allies won, whether an emotional desire to save the

Allies from defeat,

o r

sincere belief that

no

other way re-

mained, is yet to be revealed. In any case Woodrow Wilson

sinned against the very ark of the American covenant. Not

a civic righ t of th e American but was trampled upon wit h

Mr. Wilsons knowledge and consent. The uppression of

free houghtand ree speech, the errorizatio n of gre at

maages of loyal Americans, the fet ter ing of the press, the

ruthless imprisonment of dissenters, the tur nin g over of th e

desfinies of the people t o lawless officials and udges, he

filling of the country with he bitt eres t d.iatribes

of

hate

and -Be rse rke r rage-these Mr. Wilson neit her checked

nor

reprbved; heywere necessary acts of wa r time. He

wasunable osee th at whenever and wherever iberalism

links itself with war and war-madness- it is liberalism which

perishes. He could not perceive that he hadstruck down

as with a dagger the causes he had held dearest. He could

not, of course, fo r all his rare intuition, divine that h e him-

self would be the most tra gic victim of th e anti-social, anti -

democratic, a nti-Christi an forces which he had unleashed.

It was the same Wall St ree t crowd, the same Henry Cabot

LodgesandTheodore Roosevelts, who had applauded hi?

in April, 1917, who were the first to turn and rend him

when he had done what they had wished. This they did as

soon as we were once mor0 out of the hell of the mar in

which we Americans made so needless and useless a sacri-

fice. What honest Amer ican citizen who looks upon Europe

today can deny that our hundred thousand dead might as

well haveperishedagainst walls n the tre ets of New

York for all they did t o end war, safeguar d democracy,

destroy thatmili taris m which oday rea rs

its

headmore

ominously than in 1914?

Yet the Fourteen Peace Points, whether they came, as

allgged, fro m he pen of WalterLippmann,

o r

from

Mr.

Wilsons own, lifted the spiri ts of men; it seemed, if they

could be achieved, that

a

new charter of liberty,

a

new

worId orde r would be mankinds. Mr. Wilson wento

Euro pe exalted-,on high ; he was the Messiah. And if only

he could have met

his

supr eme test he would ran k today in

the minds of men next aft er Jesus of Nazareth . The kneel-

ing,prayingmassesbefore whom he passed,prayed and

kneeled in vain. It wa s o Orlando, toFochand Clem-

enceau, t o Lloyd George, in whom the good. and evil demons

struggled hourly for control, tha t the victory went. Hate,

revenge, and bruta l force, the lust and avarice of the con-

querorsprevailed.

It

was indeed

a

victors terms im-

posed upon th e vanquished,: accepted i n humiliation, un-

der duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, with t he re su lt th at

toda y the next great war looms upon the horizon. To Pari s

Mr. Wilson wentunprepared, gnorant,byhis own on-

fession,

of

the ecret reati es widely published i n he

United S tat es t en months before his departure, which were

the key to all the Allied acts from the day the war began.

They were th e explanation of t he Allies motives and he

charter of the real aims

so

skilfully hidden behind altruistic

assertions hat heAllieswere heanoi nted of God an d

the ir cause en tirel y unselfish and righteous. S o Mr. Wilson

was not on guard in Pari s against aim s as self-seeking and

8/9/2019 February 3, 1924

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158

The

Nation [Vol.

118,No. 3058

as godless as those of the enemies he had defeated in the

war,

Nor

was he able to cope with what hen confronted

him. The evil habi t of compromise, which came upon him

in the WhiteHouse, a5 on many another , making him accept

doctrines which he hadpreviouslydeclared th at henever,

never would, bese t him here . Hi s personal weaknesses, like

his compromises, fell upon him and disarmed him

;

his very

tak ing counsel of himself became par t of hi s undoing.

But above all it was foreordained tha t the t rut h tha t good

shall not come out of the evil of war should remain beyond

challenge wherever men walk.

Upon the se hin gs will thehistorians of the future

pass, each according t o his bias and o his nterpretation

of st at e papers now sealed, documents now hidden, eventa

yet t o take place. Philosophers will always wra ngl e as o

whe the r hat mans offense isworse who deliberately de-

stroys the rights and liberties of a people o r the crime

of

him who exalts the spi rit s of men by a glorious vision of a

new and nspired day, only to et he upliftedsink back,

utterly isheartened nd disillusioned, intohe arkest

slough of despond. Asohemerits nd emerits of

Woodrow Wilson books will be wri tte n to the end of time.

Those who worship him will continue to keep eyes and ea rs

closed to facts they do not wish to hear; those whose very

souls heoutrsgedandbetrayed will judge a s through

a

glass darkly. Bu t one fac t no one can deny: As pir ing to the*

st ar s he crashed to eart h, leaving behind him no emancipa-

tion of humanity, no assuaging of its wounds, only a world

wracked,embittered,more ull

o

hatreds,moreready o

tea r itself to pieces today than when he essayed the heav-

ens. The moral of his fal l is as immutable as th e hills, as

shining she planets. If umanity will perceive

acknowledge

it

that will be Woodrow Wilsons priceless

legacy to th e world he tried to serve so greatly.

0 . V.

Woodrow Wilson called the invisibleempire

set up above the forms of democracy is being

unveiled in Washington. We ar e

at

lastpermitted to see

whathas been goingonunderneath, justas n Germany

government by Hugo Stinnes and his piratical associates a5

boldlycome out int.0 the open, negotiateswithsovereign

France, and rules beside

or

in fro nt of t he government

of

Eber t and Dr. Marx. Like lightning out of a clear the

revela tions have burned upon the consciousness of th e people

things ordinarily hidden a s by the darkness of the night .

The bolt has seared and burned and destroyed. Mens repu-

tations have witheredovernight.Thepress eports hat

the politicians of b oth parti es are in a funk , tha t no such

panic has been known in Washington since the Civil War.

Even one of the most conservative news agencies now admit s

what it would not two weeks ago-that Mr. Coolidges can-

didacy has been fat ally injured and that an irresi stibl e de-

mand

is

likely t o come up from the country

f o r

candidates

entirely unaffiliated with Washington and its political stews.

Thefriends of thePresidentstill hope th at by vigorous

action he may make clear h is independence and let all the

blame rest upon PresidentHarding. It is too late.

ever Mr. Coolidges own record the mere fa ct tha t he sa t in

the Harding Cabinet while such thi ngs as the sale of these

oil leases were under discussion is enough to make h is candi-

dacy impossible. OnIy the Progressives a re unmoved-their

record

is

clean.

What has come out so f a r ? Among the Republicans

Sec retary accepted loans of

125,000

from Messrs.

Sinclair and Doheny at th e tim e when he was secretly giv-

ing hem he navys oil reserves,and hen liedabout it

before the enato rial committee. TheSecretary

of

the

Navy a party to the trans actio n from the beginning,

not, apparently, from corrupt motives, but because he was

too stupid nd gnorant ounderstandwhat t was ll

about;hisAssistantSecretary, Mr. Roosevelt, helped to

transfer the o i l reserves t o Mr. Falls departmen t and per-

sonally

took

the order o Mr. Harding for his signature.

TheAtto rney General, Mr. Daugherty,knewall-anddid

nothing. Among- th e Democrats Mr. Lane, ex-Secretary of

the nte rio r; Mr. McAdoo, ex-Secretary of theTreasury

and he ormerAttorney General,Mr.Gregory,all upon

The Political

reaking

ret iri ng fro m office accepted retainers from Mr. Doheny

or

his companies, which were in Iarge measure offered because

of his belief th at the se gentlemen would have influence with

theAdministrationrom which they adust etired.

George Creel, the officiaI publicity director and apologist fo r

the Wilson Adm inistration, fell over himself to tak e 5,000

in an oil transac tion as the price of h is influence with Mr.

Daniels; This , of course, is noth ing new: it is all part of

the easy oliticalmorality of Washington. Bu t a keen

ethical sense, the kind of ethical sm se th e American people

have a right to expect

of

their highest government officials,

would certainly Iead a man to re fuse

to

accept money for

using his persona l influence with his former associates n

office, did Mr. McAdoo when he accepted Mr. Dohenys

retainer.

Now conservativecircles are rankl ysaying hat he

worst feature of these revelations is that they will increase

radicalism in the country. These wiseacres a re not hang ing

their heads withshame hatcorruption

is

in the highest

places ; hey have no words of denunciation for the b ribers

who were found out. We have noticed no sizzling denuncia-

tions of Messrs. Fall and Denby from the American Defense

Society

or

the NationalSecurity League. What concerns

the super-patriots

of

this type

is

only the thought that the

radicals may gain strength by these revelations.

If American citizens sit supinely and permit themselves

to be robbed in thi s way, the y are certainly beyond help.

If hey wishmerely o leap aga in rom he Republican

frying-panntoheDemocraticirehey willichly

deserve thei rfate.

It

is

thehourfor

a

new party. Yes,

the revelations will increase the radicalism of the country,

if by tha t i s mea nt tha t the y will increase popular dissatis,

faction with theorganized system of political plundering

in

Washington.Mr. Wilson asked the public in 1917 this

question: Dont you know th at some manwith eloquent

tongue, without conscience, who did not care for the nation,

could pu t hi s whoIe nationnto lame?This ountry

needs todaymore than anyth ing else some man with elo-

quent tongue,

with

t o put t he whole nation into

flame, to wipe ou t

h t h

the rott en, crooked, and meaningless

old parties, and make room a new alignment like t,hat

in England, where the issue

is

now clear and sharp.