President Wilson assumed executive office as head of a great party, a faction, it might be called, of the whole American people. During the first period of his power he was concerned with the settlement of his party in office and in the accomplishment of a party legislative program. This period was like that of any other new incumbent of the Presidency, and the nation, like the government, was preoccupied with domestic concerns and the ordinary routine of political events in America. In this period, Mr. Wilson took up the project for the Federal Reserve System which Senator Aldrich, as head of the Commission created by Republican initiative, had formulated on the basis of thorough study and deliberation. The establishment of this system by the Democratic Congress was the greatest achievement in the internal reform of his career, one of the most important in our history.

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No one anticipated what was to occur in our foreign relations. The Great War began, and with it Mr. Wilson's attention was perforce turned to the difficult and dangerous problems it imposed upon us. During that period, Mr. Wilson's mind turned more and more to the world situation, yet still held firmly, in the main, to the national viewpoint, and concerned itself anxiously with means to avoid involvement in the terrific disaster of Europe.

In this, Mr. Wilson had, without question, the support of the majority of the American people. There was, indeed, a minority that believed our duty, to say nothing of our interest, lay in prompt entrance into the war by the side of imperiled nations of Western Europe. After the sinking of the "Lusitania," this minority grew, but was still a minority as was proved by the re-election of Mr. Wilson on the issue "Wilson means peace, Hughes means war". Mr. Wilson still represented the decisive majority of the people, regardless of party. The nation did not want to enter the war and its voice was the victorious Democratic slogan of 1916: "Thank God for Wilson, he kept us out of war."

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But little more than a month after his second inaugural, Mr. Wilson asked Congress to declare a state of war. Whether public opinion had so changed in the months since his re-election is a matter of speculation. It is, in fact, irrelevant because no sooner was the President's decision made known than the overwhelming mass of patriotic people swung in behind his leadership and loyally supported his will. The millions who had voted for him because he kept them out of war accepted his decision, and the nation was, as it always will be, we hope, united for victory.

But this loyalty to the nation and its Commander in Chief was not to be the personal philosophy and leadership of Woodrow Wilson. For here a third period begins. As the war progressed Mr. Wilson spoke less and less of the United States, more of humanity and the world. More and more the periphery of his expanding interest widened; smaller and smaller dwindled considerations proper to the chosen trustee of the interests of a nation. This development was applauded by a salient minority whose command of publicity in the pulpit, on the teachers' rostrum, and in the editorial chair was very great. Tuesday's 4results at the polls now give us some definite realization of how little this minority represented the instinct and impulse of the American public. Mr. Wilson's reiterated assertions that America would not fight and was not fighting for any interest of her own, that American soldiers would go "wherever in the world right is assailed by wrong", though thrilling to the altruistic in public affairs, rang hollowly in the hearts of the boys going off to die in a foreign land, and aroused little enthusiasm among the people who felt each day the material burden of the war increase in weight.

Mr. Wilson's representativeness in America waned as he more and more assumed representation of what he sincerely conceived to be the universal interests of mankind. The results of his efforts at Paris and the demand upon the American people with which he returned from Europe, completed the divergence between Mr. Wilson and the mass of his countrymen. Mr. Wilson did not represent the American people's instinct of nationality, their instinct of self-preservation, their interest in their own development and protection. They did not and they do not agree with him that they are called upon to ignore their own material 5welfare or to pour out their blood for other people's causes. They refuse the office of determining when right is assailed by wrong wherever in the world that eternal conflict may break forth, much less to lay their lives in the balance. Mr. Wilson no longer expressed the will of the American nation. To do its part for progress and for peace, the American people are ready as they have been in the past. But they are conscious of rights and interests of their own and they expect their chosen representatives to assert and conserve them at all times.

It was because Mr. Wilson no longer acted for and in behalf of the American people that they so strongly repudiated him and his policies. Bygones will not be forgotten.