Never was political veracity in Europe at a lower ebb than during the Peace Conference.  The blinding dust of half-truths cunningly mixed with falsehood and deliberately scattered with a lavish hand, obscured the vision of the people, who were expected to adopt or acquiesce in the judgments of their rulers on the various questions that arose.  Four and a half years of continuous and deliberate lying for victory had disembodied the spirit of veracity and good faith throughout the world of politics.  Facts were treated as plastic and capable of being shaped after this fashion or that, according to the aim of the speaker or writer.  Promises were made, not because the things promised were seen to be necessary or desirable, but merely in order to dispose the public favorably toward a policy or an expedient, or to create and maintain a certain frame of mind toward the enemies or the Allies.  At elections and in parliamentary discourses, undertakings were given, some of which were known to be impossible of fulfilment.  Thus the ministers in some of the Allied countries bound themselves to compel the Germans not only to pay full compensation for damage wantonly done, but also to defray the entire cost of the war.

The notion that the enemy would thus make good all losses was manifestly preposterous.  In a century the debt could not be wiped out, even though the Teutonic people could be got to work steadily and selflessly for the purpose.  For their productivity would be unavailing if their victorious adversaries were indisposed to admit the products to their markets.  And not only were the governments unwilling, but some of the peoples announced their determination to boycott German wares on their own initiative.  None the less the nations were for months buoyed up with the baleful delusion that all their war expenses would be refunded by the enemy.[70]

It was not the governments only, however, who, after having for over four years colored and refracted the truth, now continued to twist and invent “facts.”  The newspapers, with some honorable exceptions, buttressed them up and even outstripped them.  Plausible unveracity thus became a patriotic accomplishment and a recognized element of politics.  Parties and states employed it freely.  Fiction received the hall-mark of truth and fancies were current as facts.  Public men who had solemnly hazarded statements belied by subsequent events denied having ever uttered them.  Never before was the baleful theory that error is helpful so systematically applied as during the war and the armistice.  If the falsehoods circulated and the true facts suppressed were to be collected and published in a volume, one would realize the depth to which the standard of intellectual and moral integrity was lowered.[71]