was so deaf that he
could not hear a word spoken in conference and who spoke so loudly
that no one could interrupt him. "What could one do," Mr. Wilson
asked, "to penetrate a mind like that?" M. Clemenceau, who unlike
this other commissioner, had eyes and saw not, had ears and neither
would he hear, had said to him once, in response to a firm
negative, "You have a heart of steel!" "I felt like replying to
him," flashed Mr. Wilson, "I have not the heart to steal!"

So well poised, so sure of himself he felt that he could do an
extraordinary thing. He could laugh off a mistake. Robuster natures
accept mistakes as a child accepts tumbles. Mistakes for Mr. Wilson
were ordinarily crises for his arrogancy.

You may judge, then, how confident he was at that supreme moment.
He could brush aside a great mistake lightly. Someone asked him,
"What about the freedom of the seas?"

"The freedom of the seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about
that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom
of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When
I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of
the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the
League of Nations there will be no neutrals in time of war. So, of
course, there will be no question of the freedom of the seas. I
hadn't thought the thing out clearly."

From that moment the decline began. Mr. Wilson had unwisely chosen
to have his victory first and his defeats afterward, always bad
generalship.

Compromise followed compromise, each one destructive. The fourteen
points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them
by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor.
The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind
cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical.

The President saw only slowly the consequences of that chaffering
to which Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau led him. He was a poor
merchant. He dealt in morals and could cast up no daily balance. He
was busy with details for which his mind had no sufficient
curiosity or energy. Mr. Keynes, in his remarkable description of
Mr. Wilson making peace, says that his mind was slow.

Doubtless it was slow in political trading about the council table,
just as a philosopher may be slow in the small talk of a five
o'clock tea.

Mr. Wilson was out of his element in the conference; Mr. Lloyd
George and M. Cleme