Page:Czechoslovakia's tribute to the memory of Woodrow Wilson.djvu/22

 his lofty stature and to feel pride in the President who is no more. Henceforth he takes rank with the great in our history.

The main outlines of Wilson’s life are well known. The College professor became the College president, the Governor of the State of New Jersey became the President of the United States. In his educational as in his political career Wilson had shown independence of judgment, courage and authority. He had reached his dicisions usually in solitude and in silence. Democracy had always been his goal, but in the presence of events as stupendous as they were unfamiliar he interpreted these in his own way and with processes of reasoning which were not always easy to follow. He remained aloof from the environment of men. Power raised him high above the multitude and separated him from it even against his inclination. A mystic belief in his own mission as the servant of democracy, regardless of all other considerations carried him forward in an isolation which screened him from that humanity to whose service he dedicated his life.

His vision was one which aimed to serve mankind and pour out the bounty of the New World to relieve the misery of the old. The unselfish purpose of America in bringing the aid of our armies to a struggling cause, and the help of our sustenance to an enfeebled and afamished Europe, will always be a source of pride not only to every American, but to all who believe in the power for good within the human heart. Detached as Wilson was from individuals, lonely and isolated as he remained from human contact, he interpreted the deep underlying idealism of the American people and gave it a moral leadership. The same spirit of high courage which three centuries ago made our early settlers cross the ocean in frail barks and tame a wilderness, in order to have the privilege of worshipping God in their own way, now made their descendants and the descendants of the millions who since have joined them, cross the ocean once more to bring victory to the cause they held right. In the design of Providence it was perhaps no mere coincidence that during the very years when Bohemia was losing its ancient liberty, the rugged coast of New England was being settled by those whose descendants were to help regain it.

In this sense the guidance and the ideas of Wilson are linked with the states which Phoenix-like have arisen out of the ashes of the old. The United States which participated in the birth of Czechoslovakia, supported the proclamation of its independence and gave it aid in the hour of need, can take satisfaction in the immense forward strides of this Republic during the brief period since the war, and in the respect shown to its leaders in the Councils of the Nations. No one more than Wilson wold have been gladdened by the real fruits of victory which are now ripening under the peace he helped to create.

In the years of darkness which fell over the world after the war, many, it is true, despaired of what had been achieved and saw only blackness and everywhere around the desolation and the havoc wrought. They gazed on the ruins of vast Empires till they confused the destruction and the anarchy around then with the new order struggling amid