Reopening a Debate

Now we learn that a University committee has been formed to design a memorial to Woodrow Wilson 1879, this to be placed on the plaza in front of the Wilson School (On the Campus, Oct. 26). The Princeton family has been queried in an online survey as to what form the memorial should take. Sounds like a laudable exercise, until you read the fine print, so to speak.

The survey suggests that the most negative aspects of Wilson be included in the memorial language along with his positives, which I find disingenuous. The traditional purpose of such a memorial is to commemorate someone’s achievements or contributions, not to catalog his virtues and vices; that is what history books are for.

This strikes me as yet another attempt by the anti-Wilson faction to blacken his name. I thought this wound was healing; do we really want to open it again?