Bevieio of Bevicws, l/S/i?. 



27 



THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 



STATES. 



THOMAS WOODROW WILSON. 



BY ALFRED G. GARDINER. 



It was on the eve of the Lynde de- 

 bate, and all Princetown University 

 was alive with anticipation. Not that 

 there was any serious doubt as to who 

 would win the coveted prize, for young 

 Woodrow Wilson had established his 



that tlie man who would have van- 

 quished him was too scrupulous to ar- 

 gue a case against his own convic- 

 tions. 



The nicident is typical of the man, 

 whose dramatic emergence from a 



reputation as the first debater of the learned obscurity to the most power- 

 University, and his victory was as- ful position in the world of affairs is 

 sured. But the 

 event was new, and 

 the interest in it 

 had something of 



attraction of 

 ring or of a 



the 

 the 



baseball m a t ch. 

 Each of the two 

 halls furnished re- 

 presentatives for 

 the competition, 

 the choice being 

 determined b y 

 preliminary d e- 

 bate. The subject 

 of this preliminary 

 debate in Whig 

 Hall was " Free 

 Trade v. Protec- 

 tion," and the com- 

 petitors were given 

 their parts by lot. 

 The hat went 

 round, and Wilson 

 took out a slip. It 

 bore the word 

 " Protection." He 

 tore up the paper 

 and declined to debate. He was a 

 keen Free Trader, and not even as a 

 mere dialectical exercise would he con- 

 sent to advance arguments in which 

 he did not believe. Robert Bridges 

 therefore became Whig Hall's represen- 

 tative, and in the debate he was beat'^n 

 by Halsey, the Clio's representative, 

 who attributed his victory to the fact 



HON WOODKOW WILSON, 



iiau^tiratei! Pi-esident of the United States 

 Mil Maroli 4 iqi3 



not merely an 

 event, but a por- 

 tent. Dr. Wilson's 

 earliest memory is 

 of two men meet- 

 ing on that great 

 day, fifty - two 

 years ago, on 

 which Abraham 

 Lincoln was elect- 

 ed President, and 

 hearing one say to 

 the other, " This 

 means war." Since 

 that day there has 

 been no Presiden- 

 tial election so 

 charged with sig- 

 nificance as that of 

 November last. It 

 means that Amer- 

 ica is " finding it- 

 self " — that it is 

 emerging from the 

 squalor into which 

 its politics have 

 fallen. There is 

 hope for a people 

 when it can distinguish true metal from 

 false. Dr. Wilson is the first great coin 

 struck in the mint of American politics 

 for ha I f a contury. 



A MASTEIU'XX MAN. 



It is one of the ironies of nature — 

 against which he humorously protests 

 — that he should in feature so closelv 



