No matter what the human frailties may be there are always men who rise in the stress of circumstances to unexpected heights. They thrive upon difficulties and in the emergencies become protectors and saviors of men. In the world's greatest melting-pot—the burned and blood-stained battlefields of Europe—there were tried and tested millions of men of all nationalities and characteristics, and though the experience was one of bitterness, there was found in it the satisfaction that in their own way millions of men proved themselves great.
Out of the hordes that rode over mountains, sailed the seas or picked their way through trenches and across the scarred surface of the earth there looms the figures of some whose names will go down in history for all time. Their names will be written indelibly upon the pages of life and they will be known for ages after the evidences of the great strife have been obliterated and the peace for which the world struggled has been made a permanent thing.
Among those whose names will be forever linked with the terrible war as a leader of men—whose figure stands out against the mass of humanity—is Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America. Though he neither faced bullets nor tramped the historic byways of Europe in the terrible struggle, he was to all intents and purposes the commander-in-chief of all the world forces seeking to break the autocratic domination of the Hohenzollerns of Germany and give democracy its place among the nations of the world which its character justifies.
President Wilson, when he was elevated to the highest position in America which the Nation could bestow, was recognized as one of the greatest essayists and students of history, political economy, constitutional law and government in the country. And those who made light of his "book-learning" and referred to him as "the school-master president," came to know that his training and the very character of his life's work fitted him better than probably any other man in America to deal with the great national and international problems which confronted, which culminated with or grew out of America's entrance into the great war.
WILSON'S MANY HONORS.
He was born in Staunton, Va., in 1856, the son of Rev. Joseph Woodrow Wilson, and received his early education at Davidson College, N.C. Subsequently he received a degree at Princeton University and graduated in law at the University of Virginia, later practicing law at Atlanta. After this he received degrees at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale Colleges, and was professor of history and political economy, first at Bryn Mawr College and later at Wesleyan University, and finally professor of jurisprudence and political economy, then jurisprudence and politics and afterward president at Princeton University, from which post he was elected Governor of the State of New Jersey in 1913. He resigned from the Governorship and was elected President of the United States for a term beginning March, 1913, and was re-elected in November, 1916, for a second term beginning March, 1917, both times on the Democratic ticket.
As against the figure of President Wilson there stands that of the Emperor William of Germany, whose policies indirectly precipitated the war and impelled the alignment of nations to defend themselves against his autocratic domination. For years the head of the House of Hohenzollern, descendant of the ancient margraves of Germany who have battled with the old Romans, made it manifest in speech and by action that his ambition was to create a world empire.
GERMANY MUST BE RECKONED WITH.
Once at the launching of one of the great German warships he said: "The ocean teaches us that on its waves and on its most distant shores no great decision can any longer be taken without Germany and without the German Emperor. I do not think that it was in order to allow themselves to be excluded from big foreign affairs that, thirty years ago, our people, led by their princes, conquered and shed their blood. Were the German people to let themselves be treated thus, it would be, and forever, the end of their world-power; and I do not mean that that shall ever cease. To employ, in order to prevent it, the suitable means, if need be extreme means, is my duty and my highest privilege."
In a famous interview in the London "Daily Mail" in 1908, discussing the attitude of Germany toward England, the Kaiser was quoted as follows: