Savior of Europe

Wilson was the first sitting American President ever to venture out of the Western Hemisphere. He left the U.S. on December 4, 1918 to conclude the treaty that ended World War 1 in person. He got a hero’s welcome.

Beinart writes: “When Wilson disembarked, Europe’s battered masses gave him a greeting that one journalist called ‘inhuman – or superhuman.’ At 3 A.M. that night, on the train carrying the American delegation to Paris, Wilson’s doctor looked outside and saw men, women, and children lining the tracks as far as the eye could see. When the Americans reached the French capital, two million admirers jammed the streets, the largest crowd in French history. In Rome, the mayor likened Wilson’s visit to the Second Coming. In Milan, banners compared him to Moses. Italian soldiers knelt before his picture; families placed his photograph on their windowsills, surrounded by sacred candles. ‘For a brief interval,’ wrote H.G. Wells, ‘Wilson stood alone for mankind . . . . He was transfigured in the eyes of men. He ceased to be a common statesman; he became a Messiah.’”