Tumulty: It has made a beginning.
Wilson: A small beginning, a halting beginning, but a beginning, yes. Yet when I think of what the League could be doing to facilitate a general settling down to peace, if only America were behind it— And yet again, perhaps it is well. Maybe, if things had not so fallen out, the weaknesses of the thing we made would not have become manifest, until it was too late for improvement.
Marshall: You think it has weaknesses?
Wilson: The highest product of man’s mind, the law, is full of weaknesses, Marshall. How can this new conception have escaped them? But the idea will surely triumph. I have faith.
Tumulty: The new administration will kill it, if they can.
Wilson: I have faith.... It must be nearly time now.
A tall, spare man followed by his colleagues walks into the Chamber. This is Senator Lodge, the President’s life-long political foe.
Lodge (stiffly): Mr. President, we have come, as a Committee of the Senate, to notify you that the Senate and the House are about to adjourn, and await your pleasure.
Wilson (rising with majesty): Senator Lodge, I have no further communication to make. I thank you.... The few seconds now remaining no more than suffice me to lay down the authority derived from my office. (The clock strikes twelve.) Gentlemen, I wish you well, and farewell. Come, Tumulty.
He goes. Simultaneously a roar of applause without, proclaims the accession of President Harding.