For four years following the Armistice I become a wanderer in Europe, Asia Minor, and America, as a student of the psychology and state of this after-war world, trying to see beneath the surface of social and political life to the deeper currents of thought and emotion and natural law set in motion by the enormous tragedy through which so many nations had passed.
Everywhere I saw a loosening of the old restraints of mental and moral discipline and a kind of neurotic malady which was manifested by alternate gusts of gayety and depression, a wild licentiousness in the crowded cities of Europe, a spirit of restlessness and revolt among the demobilized men, and misery, starvation, disease, and despair, beyond the glare and glitter of dancing halls, restaurants, and places of frivolity.
In France the exultation of victory, which inspired a spirit of carnival in the boulevards of Paris, crowded with visitors from all the Allied nations, did not uplift the hearts of masses of peasants and humble bourgeois folk who returned to the sites of their old homes and villages of which only a few stones or sticks or rubbish heaps remained in the fields which had been swept by the flame of war. With courage and resignation they cleared the ground of barbed wire and unexploded shells, and the unburied bodies of men, and the foul litter of a four years’ battle, but they faced a bleak prospect, and behind them and around them was the vision of ruin and death. For a long time they were without water or light, stone or timber, for the work of reconstruction, or any recompense for their losses from the French Government which looked to Germany for reparations and did not get them. I talked with many of these people in their hovels and huts, marveled at their patience and courage and was saddened because so quickly after war they mistrusted the friendship of England, and the security of the peace they had gained. Their hatred to the Germans was a cold, undying fire, and beneath their hatred was the fear, already visible, that Germany hadn’t been smashed enough, and that one day she would come back again for vengeance.
In Italy there was violence, bitterness, poverty, and revolt. The nation was demoralized by all the shocks that had shaken it. The microbe of Bolshevism was working in the brains of demoralized soldiers. The very walls of Rome were scrawled with Communistic cries and the name of Lenin.
In Rome I accomplished a journalistic mission which, in its way, was a unique honor and experience. This was to interview the Pope on behalf of The Daily Chronicle and a syndicate of American newspapers. Such a thing seemed impossible, and I knew that the chances against me were a million to one. Yet I believed that some plain words from the Pope who, perhaps, alone among men had been above and outside all the fratricidal strife of nations, and had been abused by both sides as “Pro-German” and “Pro-Ally,” would be of profound interest and importance. It was possible that he might give a spiritual call to humanity in this time of moral depression and degradation. I pressed these views upon a certain prelate who had the confidence of Benedict XV, and who was a broad-minded man in sympathy with democratic thought and customs.
He laughed at me heartily for my audacity, and said, “Out of the question!... Impossible!” He explained that no journalists were allowed even at the public audiences of the Pope, owing to regrettable incidents, and that my request for a private interview couldn’t be considered.... We talked of international affairs, and presently I took my leave. “It is no use pressing for that interview?” I asked at the door. He laughed again, and said, “I will let you have a formal reply.”
Three days later, to my immense surprise, I received, without any other word, a card admitting me to a private interview with H. H. Benedict XV, at three-thirty on the following afternoon.
I knew that I had to wear evening clothes, and on that hot afternoon I entirely wrecked three white ties in the endeavor to make a decent bow, and then borrowed one from a waiter. Hiring an old carrozza, and feeling intensely nervous at the impending interview, I drove to the Vatican. My card was a magic talisman. The Swiss Guards grounded their pikes before me, and their officer bowed toward a flight of marble steps leading to the private apartments. I was passed on from room to room, saluted by gentlemen of the Pope’s bodyguard in impressive uniforms, until my knees weakened above the polished boards, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and my waiter’s dress tie slipped up behind my right ear.
Finally, in a highly self-conscious state, I reached an ante-chamber where I was kept waiting for ten minutes until a chamberlain came through a little door and beckoned to me. As I passed through the doorway, I saw a tiny little man in white robes, waiting for me on the threshold.