Don Martin diary entry for Thursday, February 14, 1918:
Irvin S. Cobb called me before I was awake. We had breakfast together. Then I went to the office where I spent most of the afternoon. Saw Admiral Hall at 4:30. He is worried about the submarines. [...] England is very sadly in need of wheat. Had dinner at Simpson’s. Then went to office. Wrote a few articles. Hotel at midnight. People beginning to talk about air raids again. New moon.
Weather cloudy and raw.
Don Martin wrote and cabled a laudatory piece about President Wilson, which was published in the New York Herald on Friday, February 15, 1918.
WOODROW WILSON IS MAN OF HOUR
IN THE EYE OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC
President and Mr. Lloyd George Regarded
as Two Dominating World Figures
ATTITUDE TOWARD AMERICA CHANGED
Newspapers in London Now Print Columns of Despatches
from the United States
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Thursday
By general agreement President Wilson and Premier Lloyd George are the two dominating world figures of to-day.
By people generally in Great Britain the President is spoken of as the man of the hour-the commanding figure of all the world, the personality which looms biggest and brightest of all when the day for world peace approaches.
The opinion of President Wilson expressed in the highest circles of British diplomacy and statecraft is a source of profoundest pride to the Americans in London. I have talked to some of the men whose names are mentioned most frequently in connection with the world war, and by all a deference is paid to Mr. Wilson which unmistakably indicated the deepest admiration for him in official quarters.
The transformation of British public opinion respecting the United States and for the President has been complete. It requires no long memory to recall rather snippy references to the United States, but none is heard now. The newspapers feature news from New York and Washington. They speak in most eulogistic phrases of the wonderful record the States already have made in getting ready to throw their weight into the balance against military autocracy, and speak in superlatives when they draw attention to the motives of honor and altruism which called the United Stats into the world conflict.
Look to Mr. Wilson as Leader
From officials and civilians alike I have heard the statement that the world will owe a moral debt to the United States which never can be repaid, for the reason that the United States came into the war with nothing to gain for herself except in so far as it would benefit by the blessings it would achieve for all mankind. The position of America is hard for many Britons to understand. Just how a nation can open its coffers of gold and send its best young blood to a field of battle three thousand miles away when its own territory is not threatened is an enigma to some British minds, but it is nevertheless an inspiring thought to the entire British commonwealth.
There was criticism of President Wilson prior to last April, when war was declared. There was mild ridicule of the American spirit which permitted its vessels to be sunk and its citizens killed. But that is all passed. England is looking to the West. It is looking to President Wilson as the greatest spokesman of the civilized world; as the man to sound the keynote for all the Allies and to America to furnish the material for the final crushing of the Teuton military power.
Labor Admires President
Every word the President utters or writes is read with eagerness. No newspaper anywhere in England paraphrases what he writes. Editorials in the London and the provincial newspapers hail him—and have been doing so since his famous war statement of last April—as a new master of English, a statesman with a marvelous breadth of view and grasp of world affairs, and as having behind him a hundred million people who stand ready to follow him, just as a smaller but equally virile nation, a half century ago, first criticized, then followed than finally worshipped Abraham Lincoln. Such, in substance, is the language of the British press.
Labor in England has the greatest respect for the President. At a recent labor convention in Nottingham I heard him praised and cheered as the friend of labor and of all mankind. Occasional references to him in the theatres of London bring a storm of applause. Mention of any other American gets no recognition. Writers in magazines speak of him as the possessor of a wonderfully clear and convincing literary style. He has convinced England that America is fighting for a principle and that for that principle it is ready to sacrifice both its wealth and its manhood.
British Pleased at Changed Attitude
The people of Great Britain are said to look with some uneasiness upon the growth of American commerce and the creation of a gigantic merchant marine, but I have heard no harsh echoes of such a sentiment. I have heard it stated, however, by men very prominent in British affairs, that the close of the war will leave the United States the great nation of the world, with limitless opportunities for business expansion and the possessor of the world’s admiration and affection.
It might and should be said also that the American officers and enlisted men who have been seen in England have accentuated the good opinion which Great Britain already had of her brother across the sea. From the expressions made to me the British are no prouder than the American residents in England of the veneration and affection the people of Great Britain have for President Wilson.
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