TUMULTY.  You don’t need to name him, President.

EX-PRES.  I don’t need to name anyone now.  Sometimes a man may know his own points of weakness too well—­guard against them to excess, be overcautious because of them; and then, trying to correct himself, just for once he’s not cautious enough.  But where I failed was in getting the loyalty and cooperation of those who didn’t agree with me so thoroughly as you did.  And I ought to have done it; for that is a part of government.  Your good executive is the man who gets all fish into his net.  I failed:  I caught some good men, but I let others go.  There was fine material to my hand which I didn’t recognise, or didn’t use so well as I should have done.  I hadn’t the faculty of letting others think for me:  when I tried, it went badly; they didn’t respond.  So—­I did all myself.

TUMULTY (airing himself a little).  You always listened to me, Governor.

EX-PRES.  Yes, Tumulty, yes.  And you weren’t offended when I—­didn’t pay any attention.

TUMULTY.  When you had paid attention, you mean.

EX-PRES.  Perhaps I do.  My way of paying attention has struck others differently.  They think I’m one who doesn’t listen—­who doesn’t want to listen.  It’s a terrible thing, Tumulty, when one sees and knows the truth so absolutely, but cannot convince others.  That’s been my fate:  to be so sure that I was right (I’m as sure of that now as ever) and yet to fail.  Here—­there—­it has been always the same.  I went over to Paris thinking to save the Peace:  there came a point when I thought it was saved; it would have been had the Senate backed me—­it could have been done then.  But when I put the case to which already we stood pledged, I convinced nobody.  They did not want justice to be done.

TUMULTY.  But you had a great following, Governor.  You had a wonderful reception when you got to Paris.

EX-PRES.  Yes:  in London too.  It seemed then as if people were only waiting to be led.  But I’m talking of the politicians now.  There was no room for conviction there; each must stick to his brief.  That’s what wrecked us.  Not one—­not one could I get to own that the right thing was the wise thing to do:  that to be just and fear not was the real policy which would have saved Europe—­and the world....  Look at it now!  Step by step, their failure is coming home to them; but still it is only as failure that they see it—­mere human inability to surmount insuperable difficulties:  the greed, the folly, the injustice, the blindness, the cruelty of it they don’t see.  And the people don’t teach it them.  They can’t.  No nation—­no victorious nation—­has gotten it at heart to say, “We, too, have sinned.”  Lest such a thing should ever be said or thought, one of the terms of peace was to hand over all the blame; so, when the enemy signed the receipt of it, the rest were acquitted.  And in that solemn farce the Allies found satisfaction!  What a picture for