WILSON WHEN YOUNG

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1931, Page 22

WILSON WHEN YOUNG

An intimate sketch of Woodrojv Wilson's , undergraduate, years at Princeton by his. classmate and per- J sonal;friend, Robert Bridges, editor of "Seribner's Magazine,'* is featured in a class record entitled "Fifty Years of tho Class *o£ 'T&," which has just been printed by the Princeton, University Press, says the "New York Times." The book,'which was privately printed for the class, contains, in addition to several feature articles, biographical sketches' of every member of the class which contributed from, its 169 members a President of the United States, a Justice of the Supreme Court) two members of. Congress, a Governor of New Jersey, a Princeton presid&at, a Princeton dean," and five Princeton trustees. Mr. Bridges, ( who, knew Mr. Wilson as " Tommy" when he lived at 10, East Witherspoon Hall as an undergraduate, describes in his article the respect which -Wilson's classmates had for him while in , college. "Wilson's ambition and training from youth," Mr. Bridges writes,'" had been along the lines of public dobate and speaking. While the rest of us were reading fiction he was fascinated by speeches of Pitt, Burke, and Chatham. Housed to go into,his father's vacant church and read the Euglish orators aloud in order.that he might get the swing of their sentences. He soon began to preach his doctrine of responsible government, and he made a. 'liberal!

REMARKABLE FIGUR^I

debating club,' where, if outvoted^ you resigned the' leadership, as an English Prime Minister docs. •' Wilson was a ~ boy like that, peculiarly adapted; to college Jife. He came from a small Southern college where .conditions .were '; then very simple, and you had to know your fellows.; Wef sooni found: out. that he had an eager mind.; .That is a rare quality among., youngsters' b^ eighteen. I But: there Miras' Aot a touch, of the pedant'or dig about him.: , "It was natural forthinras an undergraduate to -:2 t»lk ;; about Burke, Brougham, or Bagehot as for the rest of us; to' aliude;^ to Cooper .or Mayne Beid.r ' • ■... ;•. ■ '*'■ >'..', .::.r- ■ ; "We soon found out that the thing he was •most" interested in. (td which this play,of words was Accessory); was government. Now that, sounds abstract and dull. To him it meant the evolution Of a method by which all kinds of people could live together in the same country arid same world. Tor him it beganin /our little, 'college' world with its, coteries. ' He soon had around him a group.of fellows who could play the game-of club politics with the skill of practised " Parliamentarians —of that little. coterie one became AttorneyGeneral of New Jersey, another Chan-1 cellor and later Justice of the United States Supreme Court,, another Mayor of his city and' Congressman from an important districtj and bneGovernor of New Jersey', and 'President ■". of the United States.'^, .