WOODROW WILSON'S place in the history of the world
will not be determined by his character. The re-
lation between character and fame is not of first
importance. Many good men live and die unknown.
Bad men sometimes pass over into the immortal few.
The quality of a man's mind brings him only aca-
demic fame. Many stupid men mount the steps of
the hall of fame and live there on heights to which
their brilliant contemporaries never attain. Only a
man's contemporaries are influenced in their assess-
ment of his worth by his character and the quality of
his mind. If the man is a large figure in contemporary
life and has lived decently and intelligently, and has
done some notable contemporaneous work, men say:
"Here goes a famous man."

The world of this third decade of the twentieth
century, seeing in Woodrow Wilson a man whose
motives were pure, whose mind was strong, and who
built his life into an ideal which may be institu-
tionalized as an international government, declares
that his fame is safe. But alas, for predictions which
are fathered by our desires and mothered by our

-485-