Edward W. Sheldon to Woodrow Wilson

How your body has stood the stupendous burdens which your mind has so commandingly borne these last few months, has been constantly in my thoughts. The question might have involved anxiety, had not I known your Herculean capacity for work. Not since the summer of 1910, when you told me here of the somewhat nebulous political hypothesis which those ambitious and far-sighted statesmen propounded for your acceptance, have you been granted anything like an adequate holiday. I am rejoiced by the assurance of those who have recently seen you, that in spite of all these years of incessant and increasing toil, you are as fit physically as a Spartan athlete. I can only hope that their enthusiasm has in it nothing of hyperbole.

The world is following you with admiration. The spirit of this country, notwithstanding exceptional individual lapses, brings profound gratification. The general eagerness to serve, even if only by standing and waiting, is refreshing. In common with the rest, I am doing what I can, in various modest ways. As I wrote you last Spring, I esteem it a privilege to support your leadership, to the utmost of my capacity. I wish that my potentiality of service to the country were greater.

We feel that the new Liberty Loan must and will be a triumphant success. When that is accomplished all our financial and spiritual energies should be directed to preparing for the next bond issue. Such preparation will, I trust, tend to curb somewhat our amazing national extravagance, and to inspire greater readiness for personal sacrifice.

Believe me, with warmest regards,

Yours sincerely,

The President,
The White House.