second Heracles to bring back the fair Alcestis of the world's desire.
There were six months of agonized waiting, during which the world
situation rapidly deteriorated. And then he emerged with the peace
treaty. It was not a Wilson peace, and he made a fatal mistake in
somehow giving the impression that the peace was in accord with his
Fourteen Points and his various declarations. Not so the world had
understood him. This was a punic peace, the same sort of peace as the
victor had dictated to the vanquished for thousands of years. It was
not Alcestis; it was a haggard, unlovely woman with features distorted
with hatred, greed and selfishness, and the little child that the woman
carried was scarcely noticed. Yet it was for the saving of the child
that Wilson had labored until he was a physical wreck. Let our other
great statesmen and leaders enjoy their well-earned honors for their
unquestioned success at Paris. To Woodrow Wilson, the apparent failure,
belongs the undying honor, which will grow with the growing centuries,
of having saved the "little child that shall lead them yet." No other
statesman but Wilson could have done it. And he did it.

_People Did Not Understand_

The people, the common people of 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
disillusionment took its place. The most receptive mood for a new start
the world had been in for centuries passed away. Faith in their
governors and leaders was largely destroyed and the foundations of the
human government were shaken in a way which will be felt for
generations. The Paris peace lost an opportunity as unique as the great
war itself. In destroying the moral idealism born of the sacrifices of
the war it did almost as much as the war itself in shattering the
structure of Western civilization.

And the odium for all this fell especially on President Wilson. Round
him the hopes had centered; round him the disillusion and despair now
gathered. Popular opinion largely held him responsible for the bitter
disappointment and grievous failure. The cynics scoffed; his friends
were silenced in the universal disappointment. Little or nothing had
been expected from the other leaders; the whole failure was put to the
account of Woodrow Wilson. And finally America for reasons of her own
joined the pack and at the end it was his own people who to