accomplished, but he was wrong, radically wrong, in believing that it
could be properly done at the Paris Conference under the conditions
which there prevailed and in the time given for consideration of
the subject.

To believe for a moment that a world constitution--for so its advocates
looked upon the Covenant--could be drafted perfectly or even wisely in
eleven days, however much thought individuals may have previously given
to the subject, seems on the face of it to show an utter lack of
appreciation of the problems to be solved or else an abnormal confidence
in the talents and wisdom of those charged with the duty. If one
compares the learned and comprehensive debates that took place in the
convention which drafted the Constitution of the United States, and the
months that were spent in the critical examination word by word of the
proposed articles, with the ten meetings of the Commission on the League
of Nations prior to its report of February 14 and with the few hours
given to debating the substance and language of the Covenant, the
inferior character of the document produced by the Commission ought not
to be a matter of wonder. It was a foregone conclusion that it would be
found defective. Some of these defects were subsequently corrected, but
the theory and basic principles, which were the chief defects in the
plan, were preserved with no substantial change.

But the fact, which has been repeatedly asserted in the preceding pages
and which cannot be too strongly emphasized by repetition, is that the
most potent and most compelling reason for postponing the consideration
of a detailed plan for an international organization was that such a
consideration at the outset of the negotiations at Paris obstructed and
delayed the discussion and settlement of the general terms necessary to
the immediate restoration of a state of peace. Those who recall the
political and social conditions in Europe during the winter of 1918-19,
to which reference has already been made, will comprehend the
apprehension caused by anything which interrupted the negotiation of the
peace. No one dared to prophesy what might happen if the state of
political uncertainty and industrial stagnation, which existed under the
armistices, continued.

The time given to the formulation of the Covenant of the League of
Nations and the determination that it should have first place in the
negotiations caused such a delay in the proceedings and prevented