enced politician he grasped
the fact that if he was ever to present his Covenant to the world
clothed with the authority of the mightiest states, now was his
opportunity. After the Conference it would be too late. And the only
contrivance by which he could surely reckon on success was to insert the
Covenant in the Peace Treaty and set before his colleagues an
irresistible incentive for elaborating both at the same time.

He had an additional motive for these tactics in the attitude of a
section of his own countrymen. Before starting for Paris he had, as we
saw, made an appeal to the electorate to return to the legislature only
candidates of his own party to the exclusion of Republicans, and the
result fell out contrary to his expectations. Thereupon the oppositional
elements increased in numbers and displayed a marked combative
disposition. Even moderate Republicans complained in terms akin to those
employed by ex-President Taft of Mr. Wilson's "partizan exclusion of
Republicans in dealing with the highly important matter of settling the
results of the war. He solicited a commission in which the Republicans
had no representation and in which there were no prominent Americans of
any real experience and leadership of public opinion."[92]

The leaders of this opposition sharply watched the policy of the
President at the Conference and made no secret of their resolve to
utilize any serious slip as a handle for revising or rejecting the
outcome of his labors. Seeing his cherished cause thus trembling in the
scale, Mr. Wilson hit upon the expedient of linking the Covenant with
the Peace Treaty and making of the two an inseparable whole. He
announced this determination in a forcible speech[93] to his own
countrymen, in which he said, "When the Treaty comes back, gentlemen on
this side will find the Covenant not only in it, but so many threads of
the Treaty tied to the Covenant that you cannot dissect the Covenant
from the Treaty without destroying the whole vital structure." This
scheme was denounced by Mr. Wilson's opponents as a trick, but the
historian will remember it as a maneuver, which, however blameless or
meritorious its motive, was fraught with lamentable consequences for all
the peoples for whose interests the President was sincerely solicitous.
To take but one example. The misgivings generated by the Covenant
delayed the ratification of the Peace Treaty by the United States
Senate, in consequence of which the Turk