on safeguards,
relied on historic rights, invoked economic requirements, and appealed
to common sense, but all the while loyally abjured "territorial
equilibrium" and "strategic guarantees." Hence the fierce struggles
which MM. Orlando, Dmowski, Bratiano, Venizelos, and Makino had to carry
on with the chief of that state which is the least interested in
European affairs in order to obtain all or part of the territories which
they considered indispensable to the security and well-being of their
respective countries.

At the outset Mr. Wilson stood for an ideal Europe of a wholly new and
undefined type, which would have done away with the need for strategic
frontiers. Its contours were vague, for he had no clear mental picture
of the concrete Europe out of which it was to be fashioned. He spoke,
indeed, and would fain have acted, as though the old Continent were like
a thinly inhabited territory of North America fifty years ago,
unencumbered by awkward survivals of the past and capable of receiving
any impress. He seemingly took no account of its history, its peoples,
or their interests and strivings. History shared the fate of Kolchak's
government and the Ukraine; it was not recognized by the delegates. What
he brought to Europe from America was an abstract idea, old and
European, and at first his foreign colleagues treated it as such. Some
of them had actually sneered at it, others had damned it with faint
praise, and now all of them honestly strove to save their own countries'
vital interests from its disruptive action while helping to apply it to
their neighbors. Thus Britain, who at that time had no territorial
claims to put forward, had her sea-doctrine to uphold, and she upheld it
resolutely. Before he reached Europe the President was notified in plain
terms that his theory of the freedom of the seas would neither be
entertained nor discussed. Accordingly, he abandoned it without
protest. It was then explained away as a journalistic misconception.
That was the first toll paid by the American reformer in Europe, and it
spelled failure to his entire scheme, which was one and indivisible. It
fell to my lot to record the payment of the tribute and the abandonment
of that first of the fourteen commandments. The mystic thirteen
remained. But soon afterward another went by the board. Then there were
twelve. And gradually the number dwindled.

This recognition of hard realities was a bitter disappointment to all
the frie