PRESIDENT WILSON

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1986, 5 June 1919, Page 4

PRESIDENT WILSON

SKETCH BY KEITH RTHDOCH. Mr Keith Murdoch, the wellknown Australian correspondent, refers thus to President M ilson in a recent character sketch : “But he is no weakling, lie lias vanity, and an overwhelming sense of his own power upon popular opinion. Me is fond of making the strange threat, of leading the mass of l bought in any country against: its present Government. He thinks the t inted States stronger than she is, and is never tired of ascribing to the American army great deeds which it would have been unfilled until at least another year of hard war experience. Indeed, .he believes that he won (he wav—even more, that his speeches in Washington put new heart into the European soldiers at the very moment of despair and defeat. He is convinced that the Tommy an'd the poilu were inspired !o great and victorious efforts by the enunciation of Wilsonism. That is unbelievable. Bui it is (rue. A!id no European leader dares to undeceive him. The leaders at present play a different game. They wish America and Western Europe to he joined in a definite co-operation for the peaceful rule of the world, and the security of to-day’s victors. And so they do not‘correct Wilson. They do not toll him what every Allied soldier knows —that the Amerir>a* • ' can army muddled its operations, that its system of transport at Chateau Thierry delayed and ruined Eocli’s master-stroke of October; that the real contribution of the United States to the winning of the war was moral and financial. True, Eoch could not have dared Ids strokes if he had not known that these hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were in : Europe, ready to serve as a reserve. Their presence enabled him to throw in British and French and Dominion troops to the last man. But Am’erica plays an infinitely more important role in the peace than Mie played in the war.”