In his own country, where he has bitter adversaries as well as devoted friends, Mr. Wilson was regarded by many as a composite being made up of preacher, teacher, and politician.  To these diverse elements they refer the fervor and unction, the dogmatic tone, and the practised shrewdness that marked his words and acts.  Independent American opinion doubted his qualifications to be a leader.  As a politician, they said, he had always followed the crowd.  He had swum with the tide of public sentiment in cardinal matters, instead of stemming or canalizing and guiding it.  Deficient in courageous initiative, he had contented himself with merely executive functions.  No new idea, no fresh policy, was associated with his name.  His singular attitude on the Mexican imbroglio had provoked the sharp criticism even of friends and the condemnation of political opponents.  His utterances during the first stages of the World War, such as the statement that the American people were too proud to fight and had no concern with the causes and objects of the war,[55] when contrasted with the opposite views which he propounded later on, were ascribed to quick political evolution—­but were not taken as symptoms of a settled mind.  He seemed a pacifist when his pride revolted at the idea of settling any intelligible question by an appeal to violence, and a semi-militarist when, having in his own opinion created a perfectly safe and bloodless peace guarantee in the shape of the League of Nations, he agreed to safeguard it by a military compact which sapped its foundation.  He owed his re-election for a second term partly, it was alleged, to the belief that during the first he had kept his country out of the war despite the endeavors of some of its eminent leaders to bring it in; yet when firmly seated in the saddle, he followed the leaders whom he had theretofore with-stood and obliged the nation to fight.

As chief of the great country, his domestic critics add, which had just turned victory’s scale in favor of the Allies, Mr. Wilson saw a superb opportunity to hitch his wagon to a star, and now for the first time he made a determined bid for the leadership of the world.  Here the idealist showed himself at his best.  But by the way of preparation he asked the nation at the elections to refuse their votes to his political opponents, despite the fact that they were loyally supporting his policy, and to return only men of his own party, and in order to silence their misgivings he declared that to elect Republican Senators would be to repudiate the administration of the President of the United States at a critical conjuncture.  This was urged against him as the inexpiable sin.  The electors, however, sent his political opponents to the Senate, whereupon the President organized his historic visit to Europe.  It might have become a turning-point in the world’s history had he transformed his authority and prestige into the driving-power requisite to embody his beneficent