Soon after the George Washington, flying the presidential flag, had steamed out of the Bay on her way to Europe, the United Press received from its correspondent on board, who was attached to Mr. Wilson’s person, a message which invigorated the hopes of the world and evoked warm outpourings of the seared soul of suffering man in gratitude toward the bringer of balm.  It began thus:  “The President sails for Europe to uphold American ideals, and literally to fight for his Fourteen Points.  The President, at the Peace Table, will insist on the freedom of the seas and a general disarmament....  The seas, he holds, ought to be guarded by the whole world.”

Since then the world knows what to think of the literal fighting at the Peace Table.  The freedom of the seas was never as much as alluded to at the Peace Table, for the announcement of Mr. Wilson’s militant championship brought him a wireless message from London to the effect that that proposal, at all events, must be struck out of his program if he wished to do business with Britain.  And without a fight or a remonstrance the President struck it out.  The Fourteen Points were not discussed at the Conference.[58] One may deplore, but one cannot misunderstand, what happened.  Mr. Wilson, too, had his own fixed aim to attain:  intent on associating his name with a grandiose humanitarian monument, he was resolved not to return to his country without some sort of a covenant of the new international life.  He could not afford to go home empty-handed.  Therein lay his weakness and the source of his failure.  For whenever his attitude toward the Great Powers was taken to mean, “Unless you give me my Covenant, you cannot have your Treaty,” the retort was ready:  “Without our Treaty there will be no Covenant.”

Like Dejoces, the first king of the Medes, who, having built his palace at Ecbatana, surrounded it with seven walls and permanently withdrew his person from the gaze of his subjects, Mr. Wilson in Paris admitted to his presence only the authorized spokesmen of states and causes, and not all of these.  He declined to receive persons who thought they had a claim to see him, and he received others who were believed to have none.  During his sojourn in Paris he took many important Russian affairs in hand after having publicly stated that no peace could be stable so long as Russia was torn by internal strife.  And as familiarity with Russian conditions was not one of his accomplishments, he presumably needed advice and help from those acquainted with them.  Now a large number of Russians, representing all political parties and four governments, were in Paris waiting to be consulted.  But between January and May not one of them was ever asked for information or counsel.  Nay, more, those who respectfully solicited an audience were told to wait.  In the meanwhile men unacquainted with the country and people were sent by Mr. Wilson to report on the situation, and to begin by obtaining the terms of an acceptable treaty from the Bolshevik government.