which is nothing if not cosmic in its functions.[115] Again, there was to be no alliance.  The French Premier foretold that there would be one.  Mr. Wilson, who was in England at the time, answered him in a speech declaring that the United States would enter into no alliance which did not include all the world:  “no combination of power which is not a combination of all of us.”  Well, since then he became a party to a kind of triple alliance and in the judgment of many observers it constitutes the main result of the Conference.  In the words of an American press organ:  “Clemenceau got virtually everything he asked.  President Wilson virtually dropped his own program, and adopted the French and British, both of them imperialistic."[116]

Again, when the first commission of experts reported upon the frontiers of Poland, the British Premier objected to a section of the “corridor,” on the ground that as certain districts contained a majority of Germans their annexation would be a danger to the future peace and therefore to Poland herself, and also on the ground that it would run counter to one of Mr. Wilson’s fundamental points; the President, who at that time dissented from Mr. Lloyd George, rose and remarked that his principles must not be construed too literally.  “When I said that Poland must be restored, I meant that everything indispensable to her restoration must be accorded.  Therefore, if that should involve the incorporation of a number of Germans in Polish territory, it cannot be helped, for it is part of the restoration.  Poland must have access to the sea by the shortest route, and everything else which that implies.”  None the less, the British Premier, whose attitude toward the claims of the Poles was marked by a degree of definiteness and persistency which could hardly be anticipated in one who had never even heard of Teschen before the year 1919, maintained his objections with emphasis and insistence, until Mr. Wilson and M. Clemenceau gave in.

Or take the President’s way of dealing with the non-belligerent states.  Before leaving Paris for Washington, Mr. Wilson, officially questioned by one of his colleagues at an official sitting as to whether the neutrals would also sign the Covenant, replied that only the Allies would be admitted to affix their signatures.  “Don’t you think it would be more conducive to the firm establishment of the League if the neutrals were also made parties to it now?” insisted the plenipotentiary.  “No, I do not,” answered the President.  “I think that it would be conferring too much honor on them, and they 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