It has been my rule, aim and effort in my newspaper career to print nothing of a man which I would not say to his face; to print nothing of a man in malice; to look well and think twice before consigning a suspect to the ruin of printer's ink; to respect the old and defend the weak; and, lastly, at work and at play, daytime and nighttime, to be good to the girls and square with the boys, for hath it not been written of such is the kingdom of Heaven?

There will always be in a democracy two or more sets of rival leaders to two or more differing groups of followers. Hitherto history has classified these as conservatives and radicals. But as society has become more and more complex the groups have had their subdivisions. As a consequence speculative doctrinaries and adventurous politicians are enabled to get in their work of confusing the issues and exploiting themselves.

"'What are these fireworks for?' asks the rustic in the parable. 'To blind the eyes of the people,' answers the cynic."

I would not say aught in a spirit of hostility to the President of the United States. Woodrow Wilson is a clever speaker and writer. Yet the usual trend and phrase of his observations seem to be those of a special pleader, rather than those of a statesman. Every man, each of the nations, is for peace as an abstract proposition. That much goes without saying. But Mr. Wilson proposes to bind the hands of a giant and take lottery chances on the future. This, I think, the country will contest.

He is obsessed by the idea of a League of Nations. If not his own discovery he has yet made himself its leader. He talks flippantly about "American ideals" that have won the war against Germany, as if there were no English ideals and French ideals.

"In all that he does we can descry the school-master who arrived at the front rather late in life. One needs only to go over the record and mark how often he has reversed himself to detect a certain mental and temperamental instability clearly indicating a lack of fixed or resolute intellectual purpose. This is characteristic of an excess in education; of the half baked mind overtrained. The overeducated mind fancies himself a doctrinaire when he is in point of fact only a disciple."

Woodrow Wilson was born to the rather sophisticated culture of the too, too solid South. Had he grown up in England a hundred years ago he would have been a follower of the Della Cruscans. He has what is called a facile pen, though it sometimes runs away with him. It seems to have done so in the matter of the League of Nations. Inevitably such a scheme would catch the fancy of one ever on the alert for the fanciful.

I cannot too often repeat that the world we inhabit is a world of sin, disease and death. Men will fight whenever they want to fight, and no artificial scheme or process is likely to restrain them. It is mainly the costliness of war that makes most against it. But, as we have seen the last four years, it will not quell the passions of men or dull national and racial ambitions.

All that Mr. Wilson and his proposed League of Nations can do will be to revamp, and maybe for a while to reimpress the minds of the rank and file, until the bellowing followers of Bellona are ready to spring.

Eternal peace, universal peace, was not the purpose of the Deity in the creation of the universe.

Nevertheless, it would seem to be the duty of men in great place, as of us all, to proclaim the gospel of good will and cultivate the arts of fraternity. I have no quarrel with the President on this score. What I contest is the self-exploitation to which he is prone, so lacking in dignity and open to animadversion.