AMERICA'S NEW PRESIDENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 9 November 1912, Page 3

AMERICA'S NEW PRESIDENT.

~ _ DR. WOODKOW WILSO.Y. HIS RECORD AXI) ITHXCIPLES. .Dr Woodnnv Wilson, or, to give him i»s full name, Thomas Woodrow Wilson w years of age. He was born at Staunton, m Virginia, to the westward liV°n n ! 0 " d - G ™dnating at Princeton m 1879, he studied law in the University of Virginia, and in 1882-3 practised it at Atlanta, in Georgia. In ISSo he iH.irr.ied a Southern girl, Ellon Louise Axton. it will be observed that up to this sta»e us associations, with the exception of those at Princeton, had been entirely southern. J From 1885 to 18S8, .Air. Wilson was professor of history and political economy at Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania. Tins is a college for girls. Since the campaign began, Mr. Wilson's enemies have also charged him with having shaved off his moustache during this period, and "thus shook the hearts of the girls." It has also been stated that when the moustache was on, it captivated the girls. As Collier's has remarked, "the attack works either way." From Bryn Mawr the young professor went to the Weslcyan University, where he served two years. His next move was to Princeton, first as professor of jurisprudence and politics for two years, and then as president for eight years. Meanwhile he had become one of the foremost writers of the country on legal, economic and historical subjects, and the degree of Ph.D. had been showered upon lum by the John Hopkins, Rutgers, Pennsylvania, Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth Universities.

When the call came to Professor Wilson to leave Princeton and contest the Governorship of New Jersey, lie was at loggerheads with a majority of the Board of Trustees of the University because of his desire to make the system of control more democratic. The chance to get away was, therefore, opportune, and it accorded also with his ambition to become some day the President of his country. In selecting Professor Wilson as a candidate with whom they could win a position which for. 15 years had been held steadily by the Eepublicans, the Democratic bosses of New Jersey made no mistake. "In an aggressive campaign of matchless brilliancy, he carried everything before him," says a critical writer in Hampton's Magazine. "He is.one of the most forceful speakers in this country. He does not depend upon the usual traits of the orator, but upon a remarkable use of beautiful English, with a marvellous faculty for driving home his ■thought by the choice of the precise word or phrase, which so clarifies his meaning as to leave nothing to be desired. He was elected by approximately 50,000 plurality over a strong and clean opponent."

Governor Wilson believes in a tariff for revenue only, though he would reduce the scale prudently, with a regard for ''every legitimate interest involved." He aees in the existing tariff, not an instrument fashioned to benefit the business interests of the country as a whole, but one which serves the particular enterprises of particular individuals 01 groups. The policy of protection, he says, is become one of patronage. The Republican party has lost its liberty of action in dealing with the tariff, for it (has enslaved itself to the powerful manufacturing interests. "It has again and again happened," Governor Wilson declares, "to the scandal of the whole country, that items and clauses have been inserted into our tariff ; laws, which were not even explained to the members of Congress, which were a j matter of private arrangement between the representatives of certain great business interests and the members of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, and the Finance Committee of the Senate. The Finance Committee i of the Senate, in particular, during many | years was* the stronghold of these special interests Here, displayed in its grossest form, was the intimate, power of business over politics."

Governor Wilson would have welcomed reciprocity with Canada, inasmuch as it would have ueen a breach in the tariff wall. He believes emphatically iu direct primaries, and that every State should have them. He believes in the direct and popular election of Federal senators, as a means to prevent legislative control by special influence, which he regards as one of the greatest menaces to representative government. He believes, too, in the initiative and the referendum; and, in the recall in the sphere of administration, but not in the judicial sphere. On the question of the trusts, the "big business" of America, Mr. Wilson again draws the line short of where it is placed by many other Democrats. He makes a di'stinction between what, to him, is good and what is bad in the large corporations. He approved of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in principle, but he recognises that some corporations make for efficiency and economy, and so perform a public service. These he would leave alone. Some of the railroad amalgamations, for example, he places in this category. Above all, he would prevent the Trusts from becoming mixed up with polities.