CHAPTER XVII WILLIAM RANDOLPH ALCIBIADES From “The American Plutarch: Our Leading Statesmen Portrayed for the Young; with Moral Inferences.” New York: A. D. 2124. The career of William Randolph Alcibiades, publisher, soldier and politician, coincided with the era of the Great Wars. He was born to a position of power and luxury, being a nephew of the greatest statesman of his time, and having as his private tutor the leading philosopher of his time. He had rare gifts of personal beauty and charm; but his youth was wild and dissipated, and he spurned the conventional career which lay open to him, and set himself up as a leader of the Democratic party. His enemies called him a demagogue, and denied him any sincerity in his popular appeals. In the first World War the young statesman was chosen commander-in-chief of the American forces in France. Returning home, he organized and led the expedition for the conquest of South America, and laid siege to the city of Buenos Ayres. He was recalled, because his enemies charged that on the night before the expedition sailed, he had committed an act of sacrilege by chopping off the nose of the statue of George Washington in front of the Treasury Building, New York. History will never know who committed this vandalism; a young man confessed, and some of those whom he charged with guilt were executed, but the enemies of William Randolph maintained that he had purchased this confession, in order to get rid of certain persons who stood in his way. William Randolph, while being conducted back to his country under arrest, made his escape to England. In order to punish his enemies at home, he made fervent appeals to the British government to enter the war on the side of South America, and against his own country. His eloquence prevailed, and both England and France sent ships to the relief of Buenos Ayres. But William Randolph had to flee from England to France, because the English king made the discovery that the young American had seduced his wife.