"forcible arguments" became worthless.[37]

An object-lesson in the difficulty of legislating in Anglo-Saxon fashion
for foreign countries and comprehending their psychology was furnished
by two political trials which, taking place in Paris during the
Conference, enabled the delegates to estimate the distance that
separates the Anglo-Saxon from the Continental mode of thought and
action in such a fundamental problem as the administration of justice.
Raoul Villain, the murderer of Jean Jaurès--France's most eminent
statesman--was kept in prison for nearly five years without a trial. He
had assassinated his victim in cold blood. He had confessed and
justified the act. The eye-witnesses all agreed as to the facts. Before
the court, however, a long procession of ministers of state,
politicians, historians, and professors defiled, narrating in detail the
life-story, opinions, and strivings of the victim, who, in the eyes of a
stranger, unacquainted with its methods, might have seemed to be the
real culprit. The jury acquitted the prisoner.

The other accused man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French
Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his
trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest
and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin was justified
by the jury and the would-be assassin condemned to be shot. "Suppose
these trials had taken place in my country," remarked a delegate of an
Eastern state, "and that of the two condemned men one had been a member
of the privileged minority, what an uproar the incident would have
created in the United States and England! As it happened in western
Europe, it passed muster."

How far removed some continental nations are from the Anglo-Saxons in