re him to
pieces.

_Must Wait for Judgment_

Will this judgment, born of momentary disillusion and disappointment,
stand in future, or will it be reversed? The time has not come to pass
final judgment on either Wilson or any of the other great actors in the
drama at Paris. The personal estimates will depend largely on the
interpretation of that drama in the course of time. As one who saw and
watched things from the inside, I feel convinced that the present
popular estimates are largely superficial and will not stand the
searching test of time. And I have no doubt whatever that Wilson has
been harshly, unfairly, unjustly dealt with, and that he has been made
a scapegoat for the sins of others. Wilson made mistakes, and there
were occasions when I ventured to sound a warning note. But it was not
his mistakes that caused the failure for which he has been held mainly
responsible.

Let us admit the truth, however bitter it is to do so, for those who
believe in human nature. It was not Wilson who failed. The position is
far more serious. It was the human spirit itself that failed at Paris.
It is no use passing judgments and making scapegoats of this or that
individual statesman or group of statesmen. Idealists make a great
mistake in not facing the real facts sincerely and resolutely. They
believe in the power of the spirit, in the goodness which is at the
heart of things, in the triumph which is in store for the great moral
ideals of the race. But this faith only too often leads to an optimism
which is sadly and fatally at variance with actual results.

_Says Humanity Failed_

It is the realist and not the idealist who is generally justified by
events. We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and
truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and
that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle.

Paris proved this terrible truth once more. It was not Wilson who
failed there, but humanity itself. It was not the statesmen that failed
so much as the spirit of the peoples behind them. The hope, the
aspiration for a new world order of peace and right and
justice--however deeply and universally felt--was still only feeble and
ineffective in comparison with the dominant national passions which
found their expression in the peace treaty. Even if Wilson had been one
of the great demi-gods of the human race, he could not have saved the
peace. Knowing the Peace Conference