The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-06-28

the end France would be glad that
the president had come to the peace
conference, because his had been a
usefully moderating influence.
And this raises the last point, with
which l shall deal here. Was 1t wise
for the president to go to Paris
Should he have stayed away? The
Paris view, the view of all Americans
in Paris on this question was, think, I
unanimous. With all the great and |
little nations of the alliance repre- |
scented by their executives, by their |
prime ministers, how could the United
States have been represented except
by the president? We might have
made separate peace, we might have
chosen to let Europe make its terms,
since we had no demands of our own
| to make and then have accepted them,
perhaps 1t would have been wiser, but
| If we chose to go to Paris at all, we
had to go represented by the officer
of the country who ranked with the
representatives of the other great and
small powers of the world.
Criticise Mr. Wilson as one may, it
is still necessary to recognize that at
a task, which to be sure was self
chosen, he worked with an energy and
fidelity beyond question. He was at
/ it night and day. His was, in a sense,
a pathetic figure. Popularity, such as
had come to him in the first hours
| Of his stay, disappeared, he was re-
mote, he had not the capacity for
making friends and he had an infinite
capacity for being misunderstood.
Paris by turns laughed at him and
passionately criticised him. misinter-
preting his adhesion to academic no
lions as, in fact, actual championship
of Germany.
Hopes Slipped Away
Little by little most of what he had
hoped for slipped away. He saw Eu-
rope as it was, not as he had imagined
it. The little group in Grillon Hotel
passed in part from open sycophancy
to equally open criticism; he found
the politicians, whose fervor for his
ideals, as expressed in his public
statements, had convinced him Of their
faith in them, suddenly ranged against
him in disputes on which no two men
could honestly differ as a matter of
principle. In such political adven-
lures he was no match for Lloyd
George and could neither understand
nor follow the agility with which the
British prime minister leaped from
one side of a question to the other,
as the direction of British public opln-
ion seemed to change.
In the end the treaty terms which
were made, amounted to recognition
of the reasonable and the rejection of
the extreme claims of all the nations
at war with Germany, SO far as Ger
many was concerned. Had the presl-
dent had his way they would have
been milder, had he not been at the
peace conference l am certain they
would have been more severe. But
they were European terms, pure and
simple. as they were always bound to
be. The president had not dominated
the conference. He could not domi-
nate it He had found himself in the
presence of an unyielding opposition
when he threatened to go home, If
his associates did not yield. He then
declined the opportunity to turn the
world over to Bolshevism because he
could not have his own way and for
this he Is now being assailed by the
American parlor Bolsheviki, which be-
gins and ends with the assertion that
Mr. Wilson could have had his own
way and that he is to be blamed,
therefore, for not producing that mil
:. lenium To be sure he more or less
!. promised this thing, but it was impos-
!. sible at all times, for reasons which
: are themselves the explanation of
: thousand years, and more of Euro
: pean, and for that matter, human his
: tory.