r statesmen lost a measure of their
enthusiasm and faith in the project. Except in the case of a few
idealists, there was a growing disposition to view it from the purely
practical point of view and to speculate on its efficacy as an
instrument to interpret and carry out the international will. Among the
leaders of political thought in the principal Allied countries, the
reports of the President's reception in the United States were
sufficiently conflicting to arouse doubt as to whether the American
people were actually behind him in his plan for a League, and this doubt
was not diminished by his proposed changes in the Covenant, which
indicated that he was not in full control of the situation at home.

Two weeks after the President had resumed his duties as a negotiator and
had begun the work of revising the Covenant, I made a memorandum of my
views as to the situation that then existed. The memorandum is
as follows:

"_March_ 25, 1919

"With the increasing military preparations and operations throughout
Eastern Europe and the evident purpose of all these quarreling
nations to ignore any idea of disarmament and to rely upon force to
obtain and retain territory and rights, the League of Nations is
being discussed with something like contempt by the cynical,
hard-headed statesmen of those countries which are being put on a
war-footing. They are cautious and courteous out of regard for the
President. I doubt if the truth reaches him, but it comes to me from
various sources.

"These men say that in theory the idea is all right and is an ideal
to work toward, but that under present conditions it is not practical
in preventing war. They ask, what nation is going to rely on the
guaranty in the Covenant if a jealous or hostile neighbor maintains a
large army. They want to know whether it would be wise or not to
disarm under such conditions. Of course the answers are obvious. But,
if the guaranty is not sufficient, or accepted as sufficient,
protection, what becomes of the central purpose of the League and the
chief reason for creating it?

"I believe that the President and Colonel House see this, though they
do not admit it, and that to save the League from being cast into the
discard they will attempt to make of it a sort of international
agency to do certain things which would normally be done by
independent international commissions. Such a course