re attention than the treaty
itself."

The President did not receive the popular support which he expected, and
the burst of popular wrath which he believed would overwhelm senatorial
opposition was not forthcoming. In truth public opinion was confused.
America was not educated to understand the issues at stake. Wilson's
purposes at Paris had not been well reported in the press, and he himself
had failed to make plain the meaning of his policy. It was easy for
opponents of the treaty to muddy discussion and to arouse emotion where
reason was desirable. The wildest statements were made as to the effect of
the covenant, such as that entrance into the League would at once involve
the United States in war, and that Wilson was sacrificing the interests of
America to the selfish desires of European states. The same men who, a
year before, had complained that Wilson was opposing England and France,
now insisted that he had sold the United States to those nations. They
invented the catchword of "one hundred per cent Americanism," the test of
which was to be opposition to the treaty. They found strange coadjutors.
The German-Americans, suppressed during the war, now dared to emerge,
hoping to save the Fatherland from the effects of defeat by preventing the
ratification of the treaty; the politically active Irish found opportunity
to fulminate against British imperialism and "tyranny" which they
declared had been sanctioned by the treaty; impractical liberals, who were
disappointed because Wilson had not inaugurated the social millennium,
joined hands with out-and-out reactionaries. But the most discouraging
aspect of the situation was that so many persons permitted their judgment
to be clouded by their dislike of the President's personality. However
much they might disapprove the tactics of Senator Lodge they could not but
sympathize to some extent with the Senate's desire to maintain its
independence, which they believed had been assailed by Wilson. Discussions
which began with the merits of the League of Nations almost invariably
culminated with vitriolic attacks upon the character of Woodrow Wilson.

In the hope of arousing the country to a clear demand for immediate peace
based upon the Paris settlement, Wilson decided to carry out the plan
formulated some weeks previous and deliver a series of speeches from the
Middle West to the Pacific coast. He set forth on the 3d of September and
made more than thirty speeches. He was c