Part 36 (2/2)

No argument of ours could draw hiht for the ratification of the Treaty, but the threatened railway strike, with its attendant evils to the country, and added adht which was being waged in Congress for the ostensible purpose of reducing the high cost of living

One day, after De the Western trip, I took leave to say to the President that, in his condition, disastrous consequences ht result if he should follow their advice But he dis in a weary way: ”I know that I am at the end of my tether, but my friends on the Hill say that the trip is necessary to save the Treaty, and I a to make whatever personal sacrifice is required, for if the Treaty should be defeated, God only knoould happen to the world as a result of it In the presence of the great tragedy which now faces the world, no decentEven though, in ladly make the sacrifice to save the Treaty”

He spoke like a soldier as ready to make the supreme sacrifice to save the cause that lay closest to his heart

As I looked at the President while he was talking, in ination I made a comparison between the man, Woodrow Wilson, who now stood before me and the man I had met orous, agile, slender ray Now, as he stood beforethe necessity for the Western trip, he was an old riht to the end

There was another whose heroism was no less than his, Mrs Wilson She has since referred to the Western trip as ”one long night face which she turned upon the crowds froo and back to Pueblo none could have detected a trace of the anxiety that was haunting her She nity and radiant, friendly sland, France, Italy, and Belgium

At home and abroad she has always had a peculiar power to attract the populace, though she herself has never craved the spotlight Like her husband, she finds hoenial, and, like him, she prefers not to be written about

In her husband's career she has played a notable role, theShe has consistently disavowed intention to participate actively in public affairs, and yet in acity, has been able to offer tiestion No public man ever had a more devoted helpmeet, and no wife a husbandof his problethened, for that would be i illness

Mrs Wilson's strong physical constitution, coth of character and purpose, has sustained her under a strain whichman broke, she nursed him as tenderly as a mother nurses a child

Mrs Wilson must have left the White House for that ill-o heart, for she knew, none better, that her husband was suffering fro on a long vacation instead of a fighting tour that would tax the strength of an athlete in the pink of condition For seven practically vacationless years he had borne burdens too great for any constitution; he had conducted his country through the greatest of all wars; he had contended, at tile-handed, in Paris with the world's most adroit politicians; he had there been prostrated with influenza, that treacherous disease which usually iven himself a chance to recuperate; he had returned to Ae in the most desperate conflict of his career with the leaders of the opposition party; and nohen it was clear even to his men friends, and much clearer to the intuition of a devoted wife, that nature was crying out for rest, he was setting out on one of theknown even in our country, which is fas Mrs Wilson's anxieties must have increased with each successive day of the journey, but not even to we of the immediate party did she betray her fears Her resolution was as great as his

When the great illness came she had to stand between him and the peril of exhaustion from official cares, yet she could not, like the more fortunately obscure, withdraw her husband froether and take him away to some quiet place for restoration As head of the nation hethe earlyhience and her extraordinary mehty ht to her by officials for transmission to him At the proper time, when he was least in pain and least exhausted, she would present a clear, oral resume of each case and lay the docueht of her mind and the first care of her heart must be for his health Once at an acute period of his illness certain officials insisted that they must see him because they carried information which it was ”absolutely necessary that the President of the United States should have,” and she quietly replied: ”I am not interested in the President of the United States I a courage shehi his he must know When it became possible for him to see people she, in counsel with Ade for conferences and carefully watch her husband to see that they who talked with hiy

When it becaainst the League, the President finally decided upon the Western trip as the onlyhome to the people the unparalleled world situation

At the Executive offices we at once set in motion preparations for the Western trip One itinerary after another was prepared, but upon exa it the President would find that it was not extensive enough and would suspect that it was made by those of us--like Grayson and myself--ere solicitious for his health, and he would cast them aside All the itineraries provided for a week of rest in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, but when a brief vacation was intimated to him, he was obdurate in his refusal to include even a day of relaxation, saying to ive me if I took a rest on a trip such as the one I conte This is a business trip, pure and simple, and the itinerary must not include rest of any kind” He insisted that there be no suggestion of a pleasure trip attaching to a journey which he regarded as a mission

As I now look back upon this journey and its disastrous effects upon the President's health, I believe that if he had only consented to include a rest period in our arrangeht not have broken down at Pueblo

Never have I seen the President look so weary as on the night we left Washi+ngton for our swing into the West When ere about to board our special train, the President turned to me and said: ”I am in a nice fix I am scheduled between now and the 28th of Septehbourhood of a hundred speeches to various bodies, stretching all the way from Ohio to the coast, and yet the pressure of other affairs upon reat that I have not had a single et the ti froht's rest will make me fit for the work of to, however, was apparent in the speech at Colu the newspaper group who acco and its effective delivery seemed to have been carefully prepared

Day after day, for nearly amore intense in their emotion with each day Shortly after we left Tacoan to write itself in the President's face He suffered from violent headaches each day, but his speeches never betrayed his illness

In those troublous days and until the very end of our Western trip the President would not perramme Nor did he ever permit the constant headaches, which would have put an ordinary man out of sorts, to work unkindly upon the members of his immediate party, which included Mrs Wilson, Doctor Grayson, and ularly at each ood-natured and s to every call fro until late at night--fro place through which we passed Even under the entle, and considerate to those about him

I have often wished, as the criticis car, the cloak roo the President's coldness, his aloofness and exclusiveness, that the critics could for a iving expression to themselves on this critical journey If they could have peeped through the curtain of our dining roo meals, for instance, they would have been ashamed of their misrepresentations of this kind, patient, considerate, human-hearted man

When he was ”half fit,” an expression he often used, he was the best fellow in the little group on our train--good-natured, s of the coathered about hiers or conductors, or attaches of the train was a call to service to him, and one could find the President in one of the little compartments of the train, seated at the bed of a newspaper man or some attache who had been taken ill on the trip There is in the President a sincere huood-fellowshi+p which many public men carefully cultivate

It was on the Western trip, about Septey, was atteue of Nations, that Mr Willian Relations at a public hearing the facts of a conference between Secretary Lansing and hi had severely criticized the League of Nations

The press representatives aboard the train called Mr Bullitt's testimony to the President's attention He made no comment, but it was plain from his attitude that he was incensed and distressed beyondthe cause so dear to his heart, steadily ainst what appeared to be insur, was engaged in sniping and attacking him from behind