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Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 108
AUTHOR: Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
QUOTATION: We, the undersigned, visitors to Bermuda, venture respectfully to express the opinion that the admission of automobiles to the island would alter the whole character of the place, in a way which would seem to us very serious indeed. The island now attracts visitors in considerable numbers because of the quiet and dignified simplicity of its life…. It would, in our opinion, be a fatal error to attract to Bermuda the extravagant and sporting set who have made so many other places of pleasure entirely intolerable to persons of taste and cultivation.
ATTRIBUTION: WOODROW WILSON, president of Princeton, petition to the Bermuda Legislature, c. February 1, 1908.—The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link, vol. 17, pp. 609–10 (1974).

Wilson drafted this petition, which had a total of 111 signers, including Samuel L. Clemens. The Bermuda Legislature did ban all motor cars.
SUBJECTS: Bermuda