1918] The Tragedy of Delay 



period of continuous tragedy, marked by a steady 

 lowering of human values. The Great War was in 

 its essence a neighborhood quarrel in which those 

 who suffered most were the least to blame, and from 

 the consequences of which none may escape. 



The supreme error of the Paris Conference lay, it The Paris 

 seems to me, in the long delay between armistice and Conference 

 peace. It should have been possible, as indeed it was 

 virtually necessary, to build at once a modus vivendi 

 for Europe's restoration, leaving all relatively minor 

 matters of indemnity, reparation, boundaries, and 

 self-determination even the League of Nations 

 to be settled in due season and in cooler blood by 

 councils and commissions. 



Failure to do this was in part the fault of President 

 Wilson, though to accomplish it he must have cut 

 his way through a mesh of cabal, open and secret. 

 Moreover, it may fairly be said that Wilson's plans 

 were to a degree betrayed by Lloyd George in his Lloyd 

 campaign for the election of a second coalition par- 

 liament. On a platform guaranteeing the trial of 

 the Kaiser, the payment by Germany of all European 

 costs of the war, and the flooding of Britain with 

 industrial prosperity, he secured a subservient body, 

 regarded as the weakest in British history. It is 

 evident, too, that the President was also betrayed 

 at home by the intrigues of certain political enemies 

 apparently banded together to undo whatever he 

 might try to build. And behind Clemenceau stood 

 greedy, implacable elements satisfied with nothing 

 in the range of human possibility. 



Mr. Wilson's failures and successes I interpret as Wilson's 

 springing alike from a noble ambition to make his 

 administration stand out in high relief on the records 



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