AMERICA’S TRIBUTE TO EX-PRESIDENT WILSON.

GREAT LEADER LOST. “THE APOSTLE OF PEACE.” FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. NEW YORK, MONDAY.

“The leader is lost, the cause lives.” Such is the way in which the friends and admirers of Mr. Wilson are expressing themselves to-day. Nobody here disputes that his influence survives in mighty and growing power, and that his ideals remain a source of inspiration and store of wisdom for guidance towards a finer civilisation. Even those who were his political enemies – no American President had more relentless foes – dwell to-day upon Mr. Wilson’s high intellectual gifts: they recall his strength of character and firmness of will, and most people here delight to think that his meteoric rise to a position of the greatest political power is typical of what America is and can do for her valiant sons.

In this hour of national sorrow the American newspaper Press prints tributes from all parts of the world, including the leading article of The Daily Telegraph, to the “great life which has gone out.” And I may add here the fact that Mr. Wilson had long been ill does not seem to have lessened the shock. According to some of the estimates by enthusiastic adherents, Mr. Wilson in sacrificing his life for the right, as he saw it, was probably the greatest man, all things considered, that America has yet produced, and one of the most commanding figures in human history. Admittedly he was a rare combination: a charming companion, a ripe scholar, a Christian gentleman, a consummate leader, a great statesman, a dauntless figure, a lofty soul, and a genuine lover of mankind. His place in world history, as we see things here, depends on the progress of future events and whether his example and his work in helping to frame the league of Nations will influence the destiny of civilisation in centuries to come.

In any case it is felt that Wilson, the man, the apostle of peace, the lover of mankind, will live for ever. To quote President Coolidge’s proclamation directing a period of thirty days’ mourning: “Mr. Wilson led the nation through the terrific struggle of the World War with a lofty idealism which never failed him. He gave utterance to the aspirations of humanity with an eloquence holding the attention of all the earth, and he made America a new and enlarged influence in the destiny of mankind.” In the meantime it is admitted that the Congressional inquiry regarding the oil scandals should cease, in honour of Mr. Wilson, until the funeral is over.

Mr. Wilson’s failure to persuade the United States to enter the League of Nations and take a share worthy of its resources and position in the world in reconstructing peace admittedly involved most serious consequences, which the New York World, the great Democratic organ, to-day describes in the following terms:

We left France to be preyed upon by fear of her more powerful neighbour and by her own scheming politicians. We left Germany to internal strife and incitements to anarchy. We left the fairest scenes of Europe to the Turk, whom we had seen rightfully banished, and with whom, because of that defeat, we now shall probably conclude a nauseating treaty. We deserted the League of Nations... And so by a fateful combination of evil chances America, that is never consciously sordid, never mean, never base, was tricked into abandoning Europe to four years of war after war which we might have helped her to avoid, and to fiscal ruin reacting disastrously upon us that a century cannot make good.

But, to quote the same organ, “The fight is not over yet,” and the New York World urges Mr. Wilson’s fellow-countrymen to take up the work and emulate the golden example of their lost leader and carry it forward “without faltering or turning from the path until the goal is Reached for the better understanding and brotherhood of all mankind.”