George S. Johns to Woodrow Wilson
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One Annabel Lee — I know not whether she is the lady embalmed by Poe in Poetic honey or not, but that she has a fondness for haunting verse is proved by her request for a collection of limericks, which she says, on your authority, were written in partnership by you and me in Princeton days.
I am ignorant of any such collection. I know of only one masterpiece of that age, written by me and preserved in memory by you. If you perpetrated limericks at Princeton they were carefully concealed, doubtless for a good reason. If they have been discovered and traced to their origin it is a great misfortune to the country. The Democratic regime is doomed. The Wilson mask of dignity and sense is off — all is lost.
I know the dictum that the king can do no wrong is applied to Presidents who have the privilege of shifting their mistakes, inanities, follies and unveracities upon others, but spare me in my obscure content the infamy of reputed fatherhood to your youthful villanies in verse. Otherwise, I shall be compelled in self defense to publish this —A Prex who with nerve was quite flush
Wrote verse that would make a dog blush
When charged with the stuff
He got in a huff
And swore that his friend penned the slush.
Geo S. Johns