economic system, is clothed, for the President's sake, in the august
language of freedom and international equality.

But perhaps the most decisive moment, in the disintegration of the
President's moral position and the clouding of his mind, was when at
last, to the dismay of his advisers, he allowed himself to be persuaded
that the expenditure of the Allied Governments on pensions and
separation allowances could be fairly regarded as "damage done to the
civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers by German
aggression by land, by sea, and from the air," in a sense in which the
other expenses of the war could not be so regarded. It was a long
theological struggle in which, after the rejection of many different
arguments, the President finally capitulated before a masterpiece of the
sophist's art.

At last the work was finished; and the President's conscience was still
intact. In spite of everything, I believe that his temperament allowed
him to leave Paris a really sincere man; and it is probable that to this
day he is genuinely convinced that the Treaty contains practically
nothing inconsistent with his former professions.

But the work was too complete, and to this was due the last tragic
episode of the drama. The reply of Brockdorff-Rantzau inevitably took
the line that Germany had laid down her arms on the basis of certain
assurances, and that the Treaty in many particulars was not consistent
with these assurances. But this was exactly what the President could not
admit; in the sweat of solitary contemplation and with prayers to God
be had done _nothing_ that was not just and right; for the President to
admit that the German reply had force in it was to destroy his
self-respect and to disrupt the inner equipoise of his soul; and every