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Show WILSON PLEASES EVERHACTION Socialists and All Other Politicians Are Glad of His Visit. By CHARLES A. SELDEN. (N'ew York Times-Chicago Tribune Cable, Copyright.) PARIS, Dec. 19. What do the political men of France think now about Wilson and his coming In person for the peace conference? I put that question to a number num-ber of these public men after they had had two opportunities to witness the tumultuous, joyous behavior of the great throngs as the American president rode In slate through their streets and after some of these men of affairs had had an opportunity to talk with President Wilson at formal dinners and luncheons. It is the truth that the political people feel better about it now than they did before the president's arrival. At least, they say so emphatically. There is much less uneasiness. I am convinced now. replied one oi these men, "that we have been making mountains out of molehills in our anxiety as to what President Wilson would insist in-sist upon. So far as the attitude of French politicians toward the coming oi Wilson is concerned, you can divide us into two groups Socialists and non-Socialists. Each group is glad, but for different dif-ferent reasons, that Wilson Is in Paris. The Socialists looked forward to his coming com-ing with great hope that they would be able to make party capital out of the event. With that in view their factions have approached nearer to agreement among themselves than at any time since the beginning of the war. "The legitimate. Socialist group which has fought the French government all through the war and refused to support. 1 the armies, and the Albert Thomas Socialist So-cialist group which has supported the government for the purpose of winning the wiir, are now together, so far as Wilson Wil-son is concerned. They hoped to see him as a rallying point for the reunion of their factions, and, furthermore, some of them had entertained the more extravagant extrava-gant hope that Wilson would cater to them as against the rest of the French people and the French government as a means of making his ideas prevail. "They assumed that they more than anybody else in France stood for the peace conference policies which they have attributed at-tributed to Wilson. In other words, the French Socialists pretend to be the only people in France who are loyal to the league of nations idea, and who really think that wars may now be ended for all time by the methods which they claim to advocate in common, with Wilson. "As to the attitude of the French politicians poli-ticians who are not Socialists toward Wilson's coming, it has changed since his arrival. Our uncertainties were based on what seemed a lack of precision in his fourteen points, for example. We accepted ac-cepted them readily enough as principles, but were uneasy concerning his own notions no-tions as to their application. "But in two instances when we have asked for elucidation we have got it satisfactorily. sat-isfactorily. There seemed to be ambiguity ambi-guity at first about Wilson's utterance on Alsace-Lorraine, but his subsequent statement on that point has satisfied the most patriotic of Frenchmen. "Again we feared his ideas as first expressed ex-pressed concerning the matter of damages . to be paid by Germany. His subsequent j utterances on that subject have been more I reassuring. " "His first speech to the Paris public at the Hotel de Ville did more than anything any-thing else to set our minds at rest, for in the opening paragraph of that speech he referred specifically to the shameful ruin wrought by the Germans and it is in that ruin that France finds the first and i greatest grievance to be redressed." I |