expression were quite as likely to be an obstacle to the communication
of thought as a medium for the communication of thought. That is how
such phrases as "too proud to fight" and "peace without victory" were
successfully wrested from their context by his critics and twisted into
a fantastic distortion of their true meaning.

Mr. Wilson was likewise totally deficient in the art of advertising,
and advertising is the very breath of American politics. He held
himself aloof from all these points of public contact. _The World's_
relations with him have certainly been as close and intimate as those
of any other newspaper; yet during the eight years in which Mr. Wilson
has been in the White House he never sought a favor from _The World_,
he never asked for support either for himself or any of his policies,
he never complained when he was criticised, he never offered to explain
himself or his attitude on any issue of government. In the troublesome
days of his Administration he often expressed his gratitude for
services that _The World_ had rendered in the interpretation of his
policies, but he never solicited such interpretation or took measures
to facilitate it. He was an eloquent pleader for the principles in
which he believed, but he had no faculty whatever for projecting
himself into the picture.

_The Experience of History_

Mr. Wilson's enemies are fond of calling him a theorist, but there is
little of the theorist about him, otherwise he could never have made
more constructive history than any other man of his generation. What
are commonly called theories in his case were the practical application
of the experience of history to the immediate problems of government,
and in the experience of history Mr. Wilson is an expert. With the
exception of James Madison, who was called "the Father of the
Constitution," Mr. Wilson is the most profound student of government
among all the Presidents, and he had what Madison conspicuously lacked,
which was the faculty to translate his knowledge of government into the
administration of government.

When Mr. Wilson was elected President he had reached the conclusion
which most unprejudiced students of American government eventually
arrive at--that the system of checks and balances is unworkable in
practice and that the legislative and executive branches cannot be in
fact coordinate, independent departments. Other Presidents have acted
on that hypothesis without daring to admit i