The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1921-03-04


row Wilson, the apparen. failure, be-
longs the undying honor which will
grow with the growing centuries of
having saved the little Child that
shall lead them yet" No other states
nan but Wilson could have done it,.
And he did 1t. ..-...
The people, the common people o.
all lands did not understand the
significance OF what had happened.
They saw only that hard, unlovely
Prussian Peace and the great Hope
died in their hearts. The great dis
illusionment took its place. The
most receptive mood for a new start
the world had been in for centuries
passed away. Faith in their COVER
nors and leaders was largely de-
stroyed, and the foundations of hui
man government were shaken in a
way which will be felt for genera
lions. The Paris Peace lost an OPP
portunity as unique as the Great
War itself. In destroying the moral
idealism born of the sacrifices of the
war 1t did almost as much as the
war itself in shattering the structure
Of Western civilization
And the odium for all this fell es-
pecially on President Wilson. Round
him the hopes had conferred; round
him the disillusion and despair now
gathered. Popular opinion largely
disappointment and grievous failure
The cynics scoffed; his friends were
silenced in the universal disappoint-
ment. Little or nothing had been ex-
pected from the other leaders: the
whole failure was put to the &C
count of Woodrow Wilson. And fin
ally America for reasons Of her own
Joined the pack and at the end ii
was his own people who tore him to
pieces.
F Will this Judgment born of mo-
mentary disillusion and disappoint-
ment stand in future or will it be re-
versed? The time has not come to
pass final judgment on either Viii
son or any of the other great actors
in the drama at Paris. The person =
al estimates will depend largely on
the Interpretation of that drama in
the course of time. AS one who saw
and watched things from the inside
| feel convinced that the presen.
popular estimates are largely super.
fetal and will not stand the search
ing test of time. And have no
doubt whatever of that Wilson has
been harshly unfairly unjustly dear
with and that he has been made
a scrapegoat for the sins of others
Wilson made mistakes. and there
were occasions when I ventured to
sound warning note. But it was
failure for which he has been held
mainly responsible.
Let us admit the truth, however
bitter it is TO do so for those who
believe in human nature It was not
Wilson who failed. The position Is
far more serious. It was the human
spirit itself that failed at Paris. 1t is
no Use passing judgments and making
scapegoats of this or that indi-
vidual statesman or group of states
men. Idealists make a great mis-
take in not facing the real facts sin
cerely and resolutely. They believe
in the power of the spirit in the
goodness which is at the heart of
things, in the triumph which is in
store for the great moral ideals of
the race. But this faith only too Of
ten leads to on optimism which Is
sadly and fatally at variance with
actual results. 1t is the realist and
not the idealist who is generally
justified by events. We forget that
the human spirit, the spirit of good
ness 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 rs the spirit of the peoples be-
hind them. The hope, the inspira.
ton for new world order of peace
and right and justice-however
deeply and universally felt-was
still only feeble and ineffective in
comparison with the dominant ma
tional 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 l
knew it from within, / feel convinced
in my own mind that not the greatest
of the race would have saved that
situation. The great Hope was not
the heralding of the coming dawn, as
the peoples thought, but only a dim
intimatiOn Of some far off event to-
wards which we shall yet have to
make many a long weary march.
Sincerely as we believed in the NOR
al ideals for which we had fought,
the temptation at Paris of a large
booty to be divided proved too great.
And in the end not only the leaders
but the peoples preferred a bit of
booty here. stragetic frontier there,
coal field or an oil well, an addl-
ton to their population or their re.
sources-to all the faint allurements
Of the ideal. AS l said at the time,
the real Peace was still to come, and
! It could only come from a new spirit
: in the peoples themselves.
What was really saved at Paris
was the Child-the Covenant OF the
League of Nations. The political re-
alists who had their eye on the loot
were prepared-however reluctantly
| to throw that innocent little sop to
President Wilson and his fellw ideal
| lists. After all, there was not much
harm in it, 1t threatened no present
national interest and 1t gave great
| pleasure to number of good unprac
! tical people in most countries. Above
all President Wilson had to be, con-
ciiated and this was the lost and the
greatest OF the Fourteen Points on
which he had set his heart and by
which he was determined to stand or
fall. And so he got his way. But il
is fact that only man of his great
lower an Influence and logged deter
mination could have carried the Gov
enant through that Peace Conference.
hod !, he az