U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [105]
-248-the newspaper men sitting in the old pews al had to keep their overcoats on. On April 7th he ordered the George Washington
to be held at Brest with steam up ready to take the American delegation home; but he didn't go.
On April 19 sharper Clemenceau. and sharper
Lloyd George got him into their little cosy threecard-game they cal ed the Council of Four. On June 28th the Treaty of Versail es was ready
and Wilson had to go back home to explain to the
politicians who'd been ganging up on him meanwhile
in the Senate and House and to sober public opinion and to his father's God how he'd let himself be trimmed and how far he'd made the world safe
for democracy and the New Freedom.
From the day he landed in Hoboken he had his
back to the wal of the White House, talking to save his faith in words, talking to save his faith in the League of Nations, talking to save his faith in himself, in his father's God. He strained every nerve of his body and brain,
every agency of the government he had under his
control; (if anybody disagreed he was a crook or a red; no pardon for Debs). In Seattle the wobblies whose leaders were in
jail, in Seattle the wobblies whose leaders had been lynched, who'd been shot down like dogs, in Seattle the wobblies lined four blocks as Wilson passed, stood silent with their arms folded staring at the great liberal as he was hurried past in his car, huddled in his over-coat, haggard with fatigue, one side of his face twitch-ing. The men in overal s, the workingstiffs let him
-249-pass in silence after al the other blocks of handclapping and patriotic cheers. In Pueblo, Colorado, he was a grey man hardly
able to stand, one side of his face twitching:
Now that the mists of this great question have
cleared away, I believe that men will see the Truth, eye for eye and face to face. There is one thing the American People always rise to and extend their hand to, that is, the truth of justice and of liberty and of peace. We have accepted that truth and we are going to be led by it, and it is going to lead us, and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before. That was his last speech;
on the train to Wichita he had a stroke. He gave
up the speaking tour that was to sweep the country for the League of Nations. After that he was a ruined
paralysed man barely able to speak;
the day he gave up the presidency to Harding the
joint committee of the Senate and House appointed
Henry Cabot Lodge, his lifelong enemy, to make the
formal cal at the executive office in the Capitol and ask the formal question whether the president had any message for the congress assembled in joint session; Wilson managed to get to his feet, lifting himself
painful y by the two arms of the chair. "Senator Lodge, I have no further communication to make,
thank you . . . Good morning," he said.
In 1924 on February 3rd he died.
-250-NEWSREEL XXX
MONSTER GUNS REMOVED?
Longhaired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked about something to eat
They will answer in accents so sweet
PRESIDENT HAS SLIGHT COLD AT SEA
Special Chef and Staff of Waiters and Kitchen Helpers Drafted from the Biltmore Every Comfort Provided
Orchestra to Play During Meals and Navy Yard Band
to Play for Deck Music
You will eat bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
the city presents a picture of the wildest destruction espe-cial y around the General Post Office which had been total y destroyed by fire, nothing but ruins remaining Work and pray
Live on hay
Three Truckloads of Records Gathered Here
eleven men were kil ed and twentythree injured, some of them seriously as the result of an explosion of fulminate of mercury in the priming unit of one of the cap works of the E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Company; in the evening Mrs. Wilson released carrier pigeons . . . and through it all how fine the spirit of the nation was, what unity of purpose what untiring zeal what elevation of purpose ran through all its splendid