When President Wilson left Washington he enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequaled in history.  His bold and measured words carried to the peoples of Europe above and beyond the voices of their own politicians.  The enemy peoples trusted him to carry out the compact he had made with them; and the Allied peoples acknowledged him not as a victor only but almost as a prophet.  In addition to this moral influence the realities of power were in his hands.  The American armies were at the height of their numbers, discipline, and equipment.  Europe was in complete dependence on the food supplies of the United States; and financially she was even more absolutely at their mercy.  Europe not only already owed the United States more than she could pay; but only a large measure of further assistance could save her from starvation and bankruptcy.  Never had a philosopher held such weapons wherewith to bind the princes of this world.  How the crowds of the European capitals pressed about the carriage of the President!  With what curiosity, anxiety, and hope we sought a glimpse of the features and bearing of the man of destiny who, coming from the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient parent of his civilization and lay for us the foundations of the future.

The disillusion was so complete, that some of those who had trusted most hardly dared speak of it.  Could it be true? they asked of those who returned from Paris.  Was the Treaty really as bad as it seemed?  What had happened to the President?  What weakness or what misfortune had led to so extraordinary, so unlooked-for a betrayal?

Yet the causes were very ordinary and human.  The President was not a hero or a prophet; he was not even a philosopher; but a generously intentioned man, with many of the weaknesses of other human beings, and lacking that dominating intellectual equipment which would have been necessary to cope with the subtle and dangerous spellbinders whom a tremendous clash of forces and personalities had brought to the top as triumphant masters in the swift game of give and take, face to face in Council,—­a game of which he had no experience at all.

We had indeed quite a wrong idea of the President.  We knew him to be solitary and aloof, and believed him very strong-willed and obstinate.  We did not figure him as a man of detail, but the clearness with which he had taken hold of certain main ideas would, we thought, in combination with his tenacity, enable him to sweep through cobwebs.  Besides these qualities he would have the objectivity, the cultivation, and the wide knowledge of the student.  The great distinction of language which had marked his famous Notes seemed to indicate a man of lofty and powerful imagination.  His portraits indicated a fine presence and a commanding delivery.  With all this he had attained and held with increasing authority the first position in a country where the arts of the politician are not neglected.  All of which, without expecting the impossible, seemed a fine combination of qualities for the matter in hand.