Dr Thomas Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and a devout
Presbyterian, had been elected to the US Presidency in
1912.
AT HIS installation in office on Tuesday the new President of
the United States delivered an inaugural address which reads more
like a sermon than the customary deliverance on such occasions. Dr
Woodrow Wilson is an idealist, and his speech throughout breathed
the loftiest ideals of national regeneration. He deplored the human
cost of the nation's great industrial achievements, the heartless
hurry to be great, the too frequent use of government as an
instrument of evil. "This is not a day of triumph," he exclaimed;
"it is a day of dedication. Here muster not the forces of party but
the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang
in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do.
Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I
summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to
my side. God helping me. I will not fail them if they will but
counsel and sustain me." Noble words these, and worthy of a man in
that high station. Amid the horrible welter of international
jealousies in which we in Europe are involved, the nations vying
with each other in the raising of monstrous armaments, the
utterance of these lofty sentiments by the ruler of a great State
is a call to better things to which it were well if the European
Powers gave ear.