A model president

From The Spectator, 4 January 1919: President Wilson arrived in London on Thursday week, and was greeted with full expression of the heartiest goodwill. The welcome began at Dover; and when the visitors drove through the streets of London, they passed through a heavy barrage of cheering, which was renewed when the President appeared with the King on a balcony of Buckingham Palace.

On Friday week the President, after a conference with the Prime Minister and Mr Balfour, was the chief guest at a State Banquet given by the King, who, in proposing his guest’s health, said that he spoke at an historic moment, nearly 150 years after the proclamation of the American Republic, in welcoming for the first time a President of the United States in England — in welcoming one whose insight, calmness, and dignity in the discharge of his high duties had been watched with admiration.