a
speedy restoration of peace. Denial of this is useless. It is too
manifest to require proof or argument to support it. It is equally true,
I regret to say, that President Wilson was chiefly responsible for this.
If he had not insisted that a complete and detailed plan for the League
should be part of the treaty negotiated at Paris, and if he had not also
insisted that the Covenant be taken up and settled in terms before other
matters were considered, a preliminary treaty of peace would in all
probability have been signed, ratified, and in effect during
April, 1919.

Whatever evils resulted from the failure of the Paris Conference to
negotiate promptly a preliminary treaty--and it must be admitted they
were not a few--must be credited to those who caused the delay. The
personal interviews and secret conclaves before the Commission on the
League of Nations met occupied a month and a half. Practically another
half month was consumed in sessions of the Commission. The month
following was spent by President Wilson on his visit to the United
States explaining the reported Covenant and listening to criticisms.
While much was done during his absence toward the settlement of numerous
questions, final decision in every case awaited his return to Paris.
After his arrival the Commission on the League renewed its sittings to
consider amendments to its report, and it required over a month to put
it in final form for adoption; but during this latter period much time
was given to the actual terms of peace, which on account of the delay
caused in attempting to perfect the Covenant had taken the form of a
definitive rather than a preliminary treaty.

It is conservative to say that between two and three months were spent
in the drafting of a document which in the end was rejected by the
Senate of the United States and was responsible for the non-ratification
of the Treaty of Versailles. In view of the warnings that President
Wilson had received as to the probable result of insisting on the plan
of a League which he had prepared and his failure to heed the warnings,
his persistency in pressing for acceptance of the Covenant before
anything else was done makes the resulting delay in the peace less
excusable.

Two weeks after the President returned from the United States in March
the common opinion was that the drafting of the Covenant had delayed the
restoration of peace, an opinion which was endorsed in the press of many
countries. T