Mr. Wilson has fared ill with his critics, who, when in quest of explanations of his changeful courses, sought for them, as is the wont of the average politician, in the least noble parts of human nature.  In his case they felt especially repelled by his imperial aloofness, the secrecy of his deliberations, and the magisterial tone of his judgments, even when these were in flagrant contradiction with one another.  Obstinacy was also included among the traits which were commonly ascribed to him.  As a matter of fact he was a very good listener, an intelligent questioner, and amenable to argument whenever he felt free to give practical effect to the conclusions.  When this was not the case, arguments necessarily failed of their effect, and on these occasions considerations of expediency proved a lever sufficient to sway his decision.  But, like his more distinguished colleagues, he had to rely upon counsel from outside, and in his case, as in theirs, the official adviser was not always identical with the real prompter.  He, too, as we saw, set aside the findings of the commissions when they disagreed with his own.  In a word, Mr. Wilson’s fatal stumble was to have sacrificed essentials in order to score on issues of secondary moment; for while success enabled him to obtain his paper Covenant from his co-delegates in Paris, and to bring back tangible results to Washington, it lost him the leadership of the world.  The cost of this deplorable weakness to mankind can be estimated only after its worst effects have been added up and appraised.

In matters affecting the destinies of the lesser states Mr. Wilson was firm as a rock.  Prom the position once taken up nothing could move him.  Their economic dependence on his own country rendered their arguments pointless and lent irresistible force to his injunctions.  Greece’s dispute with Bulgaria was a classic instance.  The Bulgars repaired to Paris more as claimants in support of indefeasible rights than as vanquished enemies summoned to learn the conditions imposed on them by the nations which they had betrayed and assailed.  Victory alone could have justified their territorial pretensions; defeat made them grotesque.  All at once, however, it was bruited abroad that President Wilson had become Bulgaria’s intercessor and favored certain of her exorbitant claims.  One of these was for the annexation of part of the coast of western Thrace, together with a seaport at the expense of the Greeks, the race which had resided on the seaboard for twenty-five hundred consecutive years.  M. Venizelos offered them instead one commercial outlet[118] and special privileges in another, and the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France, and Japan considered the offer adequate.