The Ocala evening star., 1921-03-02

optimism which Is sadly and fatally at
variance with actual results It is the
realist and not the idealist who is gen.
orally justified by events. We forget
that the human spirit, the spirit of
goodness and truth in the world, is
still only an infant crying in the
night, and that the struggle with
darkness is as yet mostly an unequal
struggle.
Paris proved this terrible truth once
more. 1t was not Wilson who failed
there, but humanity itself. 1t was not
the statesmen that failed, so much as
the spirit of the peoples behind them.
The hope, the aspiration for a new
world order of peace and right and
justiee-however deeply and univers-
ally felt-was still only feeble and in
effective in comparison with the domi-
nant national passions which found
their expression in the peace treaty.
Even if Wilson had been one of the
great demi-gods of the human race,
he could not have saved the peace.
Knowing the peace conference as /
knew it from within, feel convinced
in my own mind that not the greatest
man born of woman in the history of
the race would have saved that situa-
tion. The great Hope was not the
heralding of the coming dawn, as the
peoples thought, but only a dim init
nation of some far off event towards
which we shall yet have to made many
believed in the moral ideals for which
we had fought, the temptation at
Paris of large booty TO be divided
proved too great. And in the end not
only the leaders but the peoples pre-
ferred a bit of booty here, strategic
frontier there a coal field or oil well,
an addition to their population or
their 4resources-to all the faint al
lurements of the ideal. As | said at
the time. and it could only come from
new spirit in the peoples themselves.
What was really saved at Paris
was the Child-the covenant of the
league of nations. The political ideal
lists who had their eye on the loot were
prepared however reluctantIy-to
throw that innocent little sop to Pres
ident Wilson and his fellow idealists
After all, there was not much harm
in it, it threatened no present nation
al interest, and it gave great pleasure
to a number of good impractical peo,
pie in most countries. Above all
President Wilson had to be conciliat
ed, and this was the last and the
greatest of the fourteen points OF
which he had set his heart and b!
which he was determined to stand o,
fall. And so he got his way. But j
is fact that only man of his grea
ipower and influence and logged de
termination could have carried tn
covenant through that peace confer
ence. Others had seen with him tn
great vision, others had perhaps give
more thought to the elaboration O
the great plan. But his was the powe
and the will that carried it through
The covenant is Wilson's souvenir t
the future of the world. No one wi
ever deny him that honor.
/ The honor Is very great, indeed, fo
? the covenant is one of the great ere
ative documents of human histor.
The peace treaty and its provision
will be gradually obliterated by tn
great human tides sweeping over til
world. But the covenant will stan
: as sure as fate. Forty-two natior
, gathered round it at the first NEE
! ing of the league at Geneva. And II
T day is not far off when all the FIRE
, ipeoples of the world will gather rouT
it. 1t MUST succeed, because the
|. is no other way for the future of civi