therefore, humored him. They all felt that the enemy, although defeated
and humbled, was not, perhaps, permanently disabled, and might, at any
moment, rise, phoenix-like and soar aloft again. The great visionary was
therefore fêted and lauded and raised to a dizzy pedestal by men who, in
their hearts, set him down as a crank. His words were reverently
repeated and his smiles recorded and remembered. Hardly any one had the
bad taste to remark that even this millennial philosopher in the
statesman's armchair left unsightly flaws in his system for the welfare
of man. Thus, while favoring equality generally, he obstinately refused
to concede it to one race, in fact, he would not hear of common fairness
being meted out to that race. It was the Polish people which was treated
thus at the Vienna Congress, and, owing to him, Poland's just claims
were ignored, her indefeasible rights were violated, and the work of the
peace-makers was botched....

Happily, optimists said, the Paris Conference was organized on a wholly
different basis. Its members considered themselves mere servants of the
public--stewards, who had to render an account of their stewardship and
who therefore went in salutary fear of the electorate at home. This
check was not felt by the plenipotentiaries in Vienna. Again, everything
the Paris delegates did was for the benefit of the masses, although most
of it was done by stealth and unappreciated by them.

The remarkable document which will forever be associated with the name
of President Wilson was the _clou_ of the Conference. The League of
Nations scheme seemed destined to change fundamentally the relations of
peoples toward one another, and the change was expected to begin
immediately after the Covenant had been voted, signed, and ratified. But
it was not relished by any government except that of the United States,
and it was in order to enable the delegates to devise such a wording of