hey don't deserve
it." The delegate was unfavorably impressed by this reply. It seemed
lacking in breadth of view. Still, it was tenable on certain narrow,
formal grounds. But what he could not digest was the eagerness with
which Mr. Wilson, on his return from Washington, abandoned his way of
thinking and adopted the opposite view. Toward the end of April the
delegates and the world were surprised to learn that not only would
Spain be admitted to the orthodox fold, but that she would have a voice
in the management of the flock with a seat in the Council. The chief of
the Portuguese delegation[117] at once delivered a trenchant protest
against this abrupt departure from principle, and as a jurisconsult
stigmatized the promotion of Spain to a voice in the Council as an
irregularity, and then retired in high dudgeon.

Thus the grave reproach cannot be spared Mr. Wilson of having been weak,
vague, and inconsistent with himself. He constituted himself the supreme
judge of a series of intricate questions affecting the organization and
tranquillity of the European Continent, as he had previously done in the
case of Mexico, with the results we know. This authority was accorded to
him--with certain reservations--in virtue of the exalted position which
he held in a state disposing of vast financial and economic resources,
shielded from some of the dangers that continually overhang European
nations, and immune from the immediate consequences of the mistakes it
might commit in international politics. For every continental people in
Europe is in some measure dependent on the good-will of the United
States, and therefore anxious to deserve it by cultivating the most
friendly relations with its chief. This predisposition on the part of
his wards was an asset that could have been put to good account. It was
a guaranty of a measure of success which would have satisfied a generous
ambition; it would have enabled him to effect by a wise policy what
revolution threatened to accomplish by violence, and to canalize and
lead to fruitful fields the new-found strength of the proletarian
masses.

The compulsion of working with others is often a wholesome corrective.
It helps one to realize the need of accommodating measures to people's
needs. But Mr. Wilson deliberately segregated himself from the nations
for whose behoof he was laboring, and from some of their authorized
representatives. And yet the aspirations and conceptions of a large
sect