women and children-most of them busy through the week-walk to his house and stand there in groups and speak together in hushed tones as if something solemn and ennobling moved them? Curiosity? Men chatter and gibe and jostle in curiosity. These people are silent, gentle and orderly. You will see them before the theater on nights when it is known that Mr. Wilson is within, quietly waiting for him to come out. There will be fifty, a hundred, sometimes even a thousand. They cheer him as he passes, and there are often chokes in the cheers, and always tenderness. Why should the vast throng that packed Pennsylvania Avenue from end to end on Armistice Day have stood reverently, with heads bowed in reverence as the bier of the Unknown Soldier passed, attended by all the official greatness of the moment-the President, his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and Diplomatic Corps, Pershing, Foch-why should this great crowd have watched in silence until, a carriage far down the line came to view? Why should this crowd unconscious of what it was doing, have broken into a low cry of sympathy and grief: "There's Wilson!" The cry flew down the long avenue. Woodrow Wilson means something to the people of the United States; something profound, something they cannot forget. People think of him now as the man who was behind the inspiration of their greatest moments; who stirred them to a fresh understanding of the meaning of words that had become mere patter on many tongues-"democracy," "union." He made them realities, personal, deep-showed them as the reason of all that is good in our present, all that is hopeful in our future, the working basis on which men may strive to liberty of soul and peaceful achievement. He made them literally things to die for, lifting all of our plain, humble thousands who never knew applause or wealth or the honor of office into the ranks of those who are willing to die for an ideal-the highest plane that humans reach. People are thinking, also, of his work in that afterwar period when the hate, revenge, and bitterness that war had loosed had none of the restraints that war compels, that terrible period we speak of as reconstruction. There, too, he kindled enthusiasm. "Now," he said, "let us do what men have long dreamed-give to each people its chance, cut down the foolish barriers of trade, limit our armaments, enter into a union of all nations pledged to cooperation and peace." The peoples of the earth rallied to his plan, pledged themselves and then the loosened passions began their war on him. Those who wanted peace and believed it easy; those who hated peace and believed it impossible; those who envied his place, differed with his judgments, failed of his favor-these and many more joined in an attack such as few men have ever faced in the history of this earth. He fought to a finish, that he might secure the pledge of the nations to the ideal of world cooperation. He won-won with the peoples of the world, if not with all of their governments. They look to him as the man who drove that ideal so deep into the soul of the nation that no man or men can ever destroy it. It has become an asset of tormented humanity, a possible way out of slaughter and hate. Through all the future, men will be building upon it, adapting, expanding, as men have built on Washington's work, on Lincoln's work, knowing that their efforts rest on something essentially sound, secure. They are simple people, remember, those thousands whose hearts he has enkindled! They are the people who do the work of the world, and their minds are easily bewildered. "He has deceived you," they were told. He has given you dreams. You live by realities, not ideals. Down with him! As a great nation, you have strength, you have gold. Keep them. Stand alone. Do not forget that you do not live by ideals." And the people withdrew-bewildered. But the shouting over, they now remembered their long days of exaltation, of sacrifice, of freedom and boldness, of worthwhileness. Was it only a deception? Was all they had felt a mere magic of words on their untrained minds, the stir of a fleeting passion in their lives? Was there no sense, no reality, in it all? That is what thousands upon thousands have been asking in these past days. And slowly they are turning to him who led them. His suffering face and palsied side are a symbol of their crippled hopes. "How is it with him?" they ask. "Does he still believe? Has he lost faith as well as strength?" And so they seek him. He means something to them; they don't quite know what. He is a living link with their noblest phase. Those who destroyed that phase are giving them nothing in its place. And so they follow his carriage, gather before his house, stand in rain and snow and cold to get even the most fleeting glimpse. They want their faith resuscitated, their vision bright ened. They want something that will bid them live again as they did in those great moments. Will the suffering face regain its color? Will the palsied side be strong again? They do not know-they watchmany pray. If their prayers prevail who can measure the mighty influence that may yet be wielded by this silent man. If their prayers do not prevail who can count the thousands who may breathe the burning words of the eloquent Southerner, "May God forget my people when they forget him." THE MIDDLE BASIN OF TENNESSEE BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE John Trotwood Moore, poet, novelist and publicist, is now State librarian of Tennessee. The following is adapted from the first chapter in his book "Songs and Stories from Tennessee.' The middle basin of Tennessee is the dimple of the universe. Away back in the past it was once the bed of a silver shining lake. But whether its waves boiled beneath a torrid sun, lashed into foam by Saurian battles, or whether glacial icebergs sunk their crystal pillars in its depths and lifted their diamond turreted peaks to the steel cold stars of an unanswering heaven, no one will ever know. Per And what became of it we shall never know. haps an earthquake rent its natural levees and it fled with the Cumberland or the Tennessee to the Gulf. Perhaps the mighty Mississippi brushed with his rough waves too closely to the western border of our calm lake one day, and she went with him, a willing captive to the sea. Or she may have passed out down the dark channels of some mammoth cave whose caverns have never heard the sound of human voice—we know not. All we know is, the lake was here-the lake is gone. Time is long. The mound builders were not here then, for they have |