V
The whole handling of the League of Nations was bungled, as most of the Democrats I know privately admit. The end of a war that had shaken the very foundations of the earth was a fitting time to attempt the formation of an association of the great powers to enforce the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Here was a matter that spoke powerfully to the conscience and the imagination, and in the chastened mood of a war-weary world it seemed a thing possible of achievement. Certainly, in so far as America was concerned, it was a project to be approached in such manner that its success could in no way be jeopardized by partisanship. The possibility of opposition by Democratic senators, the hostility of Republican senators, which was not merely partisan but in certain quarters tinged with bitter personal hatred of the President, was to be anticipated and minimized.
The President’s two trips abroad were a mistake, at least in that they encouraged those of his critics who assailed him as an autocrat and supreme egotist stubbornly bent upon doing the whole business in his own way. The nation was entitled to the services in the peace negotiations of its best talent—men strongly established in public confidence. Mr. Wilson paid dearly for his inability to recognize this. His own appearance at Versailles conveyed a false impression of his powers, and the effect at home was to cause uneasiness among many who had most cordially supported him.
The hovering figure of Colonel House has been a constant irritation to a public uninformed as to the training or experience that set him apart for preferment. In sending from the homebound ship an invitation to the august Foreign Relations committee to gather at the White House at an hour appointed and hear the good news that a league was in prospect, the President once more displayed a lamentable ignorance of human nature. His attitude was a trifle too much like that of a parent returning from a journey and piquing the curiosity of his household by a message conveying the glad tidings that he was bringing presents for their delight. There are one hundred millions of us, and we are not to be managed in this way.
Colonel Roosevelt might have done precisely these things and “got away with it.” Many thousands would have said it was just like him, and applauded. The effect of Mr. Wilson’s course was to precipitate a prolonged battle over the league and leave it high in the air. It hovers over the present campaign like a toy balloon floating within reach of languid and indifferent spectators. In that part of the country with whose feelings and temper on public matters I may pretend to some knowledge, I do not believe that any one cares greatly about it. The moment it became a partisan question, it lost its vitality as a moral issue that promised peace and security to America and all the world. Our attitude with respect to the league has added nothing to the nation’s dignity; rather, by our wabbly course in this matter we have done much to weaken the case for world democracy. Its early acceptance, with reservations that would have stilled the cry of denationalization, would have made it an achievement on which the Democratic party might have gone to the people with satisfaction and confidence. Even considered as an experiment of dubious practicability, it would have been defensible at least as an honest attempt to blunt the sword of the war god. The spirit in which we associated ourselves with the other powers that resisted the Kaiser’s attempt to bestride the world like a Colossus needed for its complete expression the further effort to make a repetition of the gigantic struggle impossible.
As a people we are strongly aroused and our imagination quickened by anything that may be viewed in a glow of spirituality; and a scheme of peace insurance already in operation would have proved a dangerous thing to attack. But the league’s moral and spiritual aspects have been marred or lost. The patience of the people has been exhausted by the long debate about it, and the pettiness and insincerity, the contemptible evasion and hair-splitting, that have marked the controversy over what is, in its purpose and aim, a crystallization of the hope of mankind in all the ages. Such a league might fail; certainly its chance of success is vastly decreased by America’s refusal to participate.