Milford High School - Oak Lily and Ivy Yearbook (Milford, MA)

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THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. 31 pose that secession had been accom¬ plished? Conceive of this Union as di¬ vided into two separate and independent sovereignties!” He realized that with¬ out the help of the North, the future of the South would have been more than dark; it would have been, as he said, “inevitably and overwhelmingly disas¬ trous.” Along with his sense of sportsman¬ ship, Wilson had a keen sense of hum¬ or. He loved humorous stories and wit¬ ty verses, and he was always picking up amusing incidents and telling them with great delight. His friend Daniels thought that his sense of humor was his salvation; it relaxed what other¬ wise might have been an unbearable tension of earnestness. No doubt this sense of humor brought many a beam of light into his family life. His boyhood and married life were both perfectly happy, and at one time Wilson said that except for his father and his wife, he “would never have reached the White House.” Mrs. Wilson, besides being a devoted wife, was a sincere and courageous critic, one of the few real critics that he had among his intimate friends. A relative once said, in speaking of Wilson and his wife, “I cannot express to you the loveliness of life in that home. It was filled with so much kindness and courtesy, with so much devotion between Ellen and Cousin Woodrow, that the air always seemed to have a kind of sparkle.” Dur¬ ing the last trying days of Mrs. Wil¬ son’s life her husband spent hours by her bed cheering and encouraging her. This phase of the life of Wilson is beau¬ tifully and sympathetically described in his biography by Roy Stannard Baker. Later Wilson was cheered by the companionship of his second wife, the charming Edith Bolling Galt, who ac¬ companied him to Europe at the time of the Peace Conference and shared the cordial reception accorded her famous husband. According to one admiring writer, Wilson the diplomat was “Flor¬ entine in the tactfulness of his ap¬ proach, Roman in his scope, French in his politeness, British in his forthright¬ ness, and yet American in his daring, his freedom from the trammels of traditions.” After these eventful days came the return to America, the refusal of the Senate to agree with Wilson’s plans of peace, and the Western speaking tour. Then illness sent Wilson back to the White House to become a broken inva¬ lid facing months of weariness and dis¬ appointment. A great joy came to glad¬ den his last years, however. This was the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in recognition of his great work at the Peace Table. In accepting the prize, he said, “The cause of peace and the cause of truth are of one family. Whatever has been accomplished in the past is pet¬ ty compared with the glory and promise of the future.” Soon, three years after the comple¬ tion of his second term as President of the United States, with sorrowing friends kneeling in prayer in the street outside his home, this scholar and ideal¬ ist murmured, “I am ready!” and passed quietly away. As Stanton said at the deathbed of Lincoln, “He now belongs to the ages!” Woodrow Wilson stands to-day, as he will stand to-morrow, “a pyramid on the sands of time.” Alyce Margaret Youngson.

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30 THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. Crucifixion. They laughed at all these, but now their names are immortal.” What courage was needed to reject a gift of $3,000,000, bequeathed to Trinceton while he was President there, in order to maintain an ideal! He re¬ jected this otter, as he did other gifts in an effort to make Princeton more aemocratic, for democracy was his ideal, ' these gifts had conditions attached to tnem, providing for clubs to which only the wealthy students might belong. With the trustees and the alumni both against him, Wilson proposed to resign, rather than give up the vision for which he had worked so whole-heartedly. To mm, principles and ideals were para¬ mount, even outweighing personalities. W ilson was a maker of precedents, a man not waiting to be shown, but tak¬ ing the lead himself. He fought in the open, eye to eye and face to face. Never were such drastic and beneficial reforms made as when Wilson was at the helm. One of his greatest achievements as Governor of New Jersey was his de¬ struction of the trusts and “bosses.” Before his election New Jersey had been known as the “Paradise of the Trusts”, but with his election it be¬ came a “Paradise Lost”. Before his first term as President was over, he had reduced the tariff, reformed the national currency system, established an anti¬ trust law, and repealed the Panama Canal Tolls Act. In such things as these was Wilson a maker of precedents. But what of the personal character¬ istics of this idealist, this leader of men? One of the things Woodrow Wilson was proudest of was his heritage. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, a “strain perhaps the most alert mentally, the most vigorous physically, and the most robust morally of all that have minglec in shaping the American character.” His obstinate jaw, his half-shy, half- challenging manner when meeting strangers, and his caution and blunt¬ ness come from the Scotch strain. His bubbling humor, his repartee, his love of frolics and children come from the Irish strain. Once, with a twinkle in his eye, he said to a class at Bryn Mawr, “No one who amounts to anything is without some Scotch-Irish blood.” In all his life, Woodrow Wilson never neglected his religious devotions. He read his Bible daily, and actually wore out two or three Bibles in doing so. He also prayed daily and said grace before every meal. He once wrote, “I do not see how anyone can sustain himself in any enterprise of life without prayer.” He admitted that there were many things which he did not understand, but he always believed that right would eventually prevail. Speaking of this, he once said to his secretary, “I would rather go down in defeat with a cause which will one day be victorious than to win with a cause which will one day be defeated.” In the use of his mother tongue, Wilson had no superior. During his youth, his father had insisted that everything he said be expressed in per¬ fect English. If there was any doubt, young “Tommy” Woodrow was sent fly¬ ing for the dictionary. Thus were de¬ veloped the habits of accuracy and clar¬ ity which mark his best literary work. This knowledge of the correct use of English served him well in his public life where it was necessary to make many speeches. He always spoke with full understanding and a sincere belief in his subject. Never did he talk over the heads of the audience but always in a manner that might be understood by the masses. He seldom spoke with great passion, but his sincerity was so evident that the average listener never missed the “calmness of white heat.” Even Calvin Coolidge, his political op¬ ponent, said that “no one could doulbt the sincerity of this man.” It is said that his ideas “patrolled the world like battleships, bearing at full mast, and in bold defiance, the American flag.” To be a really successful leader of men, one must be able to lose cheerful¬ ly, and Wilson, as Gamaliel Bradford tells us, knew the meaning of sports¬ manship. As a Southerner, he might have harbored resentment against the people of the North because of the out¬ come of the Civil War. Instead, as a wise man, he saw the benefits of a Northern victory. He said, “I yield to no one precedence in love for the South. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy. Sup-

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32 THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. VALEDICTORY. FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT. “Under a smiling exterior he is a man of inflexible steel.” With these words a recent writer pictures the courageous and accom¬ plished man whom America has the privilege and good fortune to possess at this critical period as her President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Without two tragic tests of faith, one in his own life and one in the life of America, it is doubtful whether Roose¬ velt would have attained the presidency. If he had not been inflicted with paral¬ ysis, it is doubtful whether he would have developed the magnificent power of concentration which overcame all ob¬ stacles, physical and political, which lay before him in the path to the presidency of the United States. And, if America had not been stricken with the most in¬ tense of economic diseases, it is uncer¬ tain whether Roosevelt or any Democrat could have succeeded in wresting control from the Republican party. The president of the United States is a vastly interesting and fascinating man. A graduate of the Law School of Columbia University, he is a special¬ ist in the theory and legalities of gov¬ ernment. Always eager to receive more knowledge, he is said to possess an “un¬ usually wide range of accurate informa¬ tion upon the details of the work of many professions and callings.” His most outstanding characteristic is the amiability which has won him many real friends. Scores of Roosevelt’s acquaint¬ ances are recent, but they are few in comparison with the enormous list of friendly associates which he has been building up for years. Speaking of his speed and care in answering letters, one biographer says, “It is probable that within the last three years more indi¬ viduals have received his personal let¬ ters than could be reasonably expected from any three men devoting all their waking hours to dictation.” His delightful informality is an¬ other characteristic that makes any person in his presence feel at ease. As one writer has remarked, deep within most of us is the desire to remain our¬ selves even when associating with pow¬ er; Roosevelt makes this easy. As many callers at the White House have testi¬ fied, his behavior as a natural man re¬ lieves whatever tension his visitor may have experienced. He is said to be as approachable as one’s own family phy¬ sician. Although his cordiality is unas¬ sumed, it has proved a great defense. He sweeps away leading and political ques¬ tions with a friendly grin. He abolishes a personal controversy between officials —one, for example, which had reached the stage of physical encounter—by re¬ ferring them to the State Boxing Com¬ mission for the settlement of their dis¬ pute. Another of Roosevelt’s valuable qualities is persistency. Some years ago, when running for reelection as state senator, he was opposed by one of the strongest political bosses. Always a firm believer in the magic of the spok¬ en word, he took every opportunity to address crowds regardless of the num¬ ber. During Roosevelt’s first campaign for New York senatorship in 1910, auto¬ mobiles were scarce. Disregarding the counsel of political advisers, he had the temerity to start off on his round of speech making in a battered old Ford, a mechanical device which, from the farmer’s point of view, had been in¬ vented for the express purpose of hurl¬ ing dust in his eyes, frightening his horse, and driving his wagons off the road. To the practical politician, it seemed impossible that Roosevelt, with his clanking car, could drive into a farm¬ er’s dooryard, entirely disrupt the peace of the neighborhood as well as the farmer’s schedule, and yet secure a vote. But that is exactly what hap¬ pened. Roosevelt’s informality, his ap¬ pearance, his energy, his enthusiasm.