Editorials

Editorials

Kibbee, William B.

WWP15919

1919 October 8

Two brief newspaper editorials, one of them unattributed.

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

English

[Editorial]

Desire to know what is the President’s illness, which of course has been experienced by all, is expressed by the New York “World,” which censures his physicians for having withheld the information and demands that they give it. It says:

The incapacity of the President from any cause is of vital public interest. His personal welfare is a matter of importance to all good citizens, but above every consideration of sympathy is the right of the people to be informed as to his actual condition. From the beginning of his illness until the present moment not a word has come from the sick-chamber that could be regarded as frankly enlightening.

Mystery begets mystification, and to no valid purpose. It is to be presumed that his physicians know the nature of the President’s malady. They are public characters treating a public character. In the fierce light that beats upon them and their patient there can be no privacy that is not mischievous. It is their duty to tell the truth.

_______________
Nervous Exhaustion

To the Editor of The World:

I have just read the editorial of criticism on Dr. Grayson’s bulletin and what he says about the President’s sickness. I don't know how many editors you have on your paper, but the man who wrote that article I will bet $100 to $1 has never had the trouble that the President has—viz., nervous exhaustion. I am over sixty years old and when I was thirty-three had this trouble from overdoing, the same as the President has done. In fact where I overdid 10 per cent. the President has overdone 100 per cent. No man could have gone through with the life that he has had since the declaration of war on Germany and not break down unless he was made of iron.

You know that the President did have a slight attack of the same trouble when he was President of Princeton University, and they gave him a three months’ leave of absence, which brought him around all right. But since the war commenced the President has not had one day of let-up and has taken on responsibilities that should have been shouldered by others, but he would not permit them to do so until the breakdown has come. I wish you would publish this statement from one who knows what nervous exhaustion is. At thirty-three years old it took me six months to recover—in fact, I was a dead body for that length of time.

Albany. WM. B. KIBBEE

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