points, "open covenants of peace, openly arrived at," to the elaboration of a hasty compromise peace treaty, which violated virtually all the 14 points, behind closed doors in the Hotel Bischoffsheim.

The other day an unkempt, ragged peasant with strong Slavic features came into our press room at the Hotel Crillon. He asked to see President Wilson. He told us that he was a Lithuanian from the region of Vilna. In a village newspaper he had read a speech of President Wilson which filled him with enthusiasm. The great Wilson preached a gospel that had never before been heard in the frontier marches of Russia. People were going to have a chance to decide their own destinies. They were not to be bartered like cattle and transferred from one master to another. The peasant walked 15 days through a famine-stricken country to Warsaw. God knows how he got to Paris, but does not faith open all doors? Here he was to tell President Wilson that the Lithuanian people wanted to rule themselves. They could not believe that the peace conference, in defiance of the great Wilson's promise, would transfer them from Russian to Polish masters.

SECOND GREAT MISTAKE.

The second cause of failure of the conference of Paris was the attempt of the "council of 10" to solve conflicting irredentisms without assuming the rôle and adopting the attitude of judges.

Irredentist aspirations, being moot questions, should have been referred to arbiters. We were trying to arrive at a peace that would lessen, if not remove, causes for future wars. We were trying to establish a society of nations. No single effort of the peace conference was more important than the arrangement of boundaries between States in a way to cause as little friction as possible. The peace conference adopted a sensible method to deal with irredentisms. States exposed their territorial demands before the "council of 10," which referred them to special commissions. The "council of 10" passed upon the findings of the commissions before incorporating them in the treaty of peace. But the success of this procedure demanded a judicial spirit in the commissions and the will on the part of the members of the "council of 10" to decide each boundary question strictly on the merits of the case, and, to quote President Wilson, "not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its exterior influence or mastery."

The reports of commissions on boundary questions and the discussions in the bosom of the "council of 10"-and later among the four heads of States-demonstrated that Europe is far from being ready for a society of nations. The representatives of European States on the commissions were not judicial investigators. They looked upon every boundary question in the light of how its decision one way or the other would affect the interests of the country they represented. The members of the "council of 10," when the reports came to them, were not judges, but partisans, of this or that foreign policy which they conceived to be to the interest of the country they represented or to their own political interests before their electors. The peace conference, from little fry up to chiefs of States, had degenerated

before Easter into a struggle for choice morsels. The great powers bullied and threatened and bribed the small States and one another. The small States sought to protect and advance their interests by political and financial combinazioni.

As examples of how principle was ignored in the findings of the commissions on territorial changes one can cite the following contradictory recommendations of the commission of the conference of Paris:

Principle: A State must have a free and unhampered outlet to the sea in order to insure its existence. In accordance with this principle, the Polish commission proposed to give Dantzic to the Poles, together with a wide "corridor" on both banks of the Vistula and a general coast line on the Baltic, which would have meant englobing millions of Germans in Polish territory. But the principle was denied by the attribution of Triest to Italy at the expense of the Austrians and Slovenes; it would be by the cession of Fiume to Italy at the expense of the Hungarians and Jugo-Slavs; of Dedeagatch and Porto Laghos to Greece at the expense of the Bulgarians.

Principle: A port should belong to the country of the majority of its inhabitants, irrespective of the racial composition and economic necessities of its hinterland. Therefore Triest was awarded to Italy and Fiume has been bitterly demanded by Italy, although the Italian majority is not overwhelming in either city and the hinterlands of both contain few Italians. But Dantzic, with 95 per cent German population, was detached from Germany to give an outlet to Poland. Principle: As it is impossible to draw frontiers in disregard of geography, minorities must submit to majorities. So considerably more than 2,000,000 Germans of Bohemia were told that they must become Czecho-Slovak subjects. But a few hundred thousand Ulstermen in a little corner of Ireland were the argument used to justify Great Britain's refusal to grant independence or even home rule to the geographical unity of the island of Ireland.

Principle: A nation has the right to the possession of contiguous territory in which the majority of the inhabitants express the will to be united to the mother country. So Germany was summoned to give up her Danes to Denmark and her Poles to Poland and her Alsatians and Lorrainers to France. But Poland was equally authorized to take by force three million and a half Ukranians from Ukrania; Roumania and Czechoslovakia were given territories inhabited by Hungarian majorities, and the Entente powers and the United States bullied Jugo-Slavia into abandoning the Slovenes and many Croats to Italy.

Why multiply illustrations of glaring injustices and inconsistencies the only excuses for which were (a) to weaken Germany for the future and (b) to preserve harmony among the Entente powers? Those given suffice to show why small States lost their faith in the impartiality and disinterestedness of the great powers and why Ukrania and Hungary went over to Bolshevism.

DIAGREE ON REPARATION.

The third cause of the failure of the conference of Paris was the hopeless disagreement over the amount of damages to exact from Germany and the methods of payment.

In the answer of the supreme war council of Versailles to President Wilson's inquiry as to whether the Allies were disposed to entertain an armistice demand from the Germans it was stated that the Entente powers were ready to make peace on the basis of President Wilson's "14 points and subsequent discourses," with a reservation concerning the liberty of the seas. But they wanted it clearly understood by the Germans that the vanquished were to pay for the damages caused by military operations on land and sea and in the air. In the first delirium of joy over the collapse of Germany and when the desperate financial situation of France began to dawn upon the people the Paris newspapers, imitated by those of the Provinces, told the French people that reparations included the total bill of war expenses and the service of military pensions in France. The slogan was, "France will have lost the war if the returning soldiers have to pay one cent more of taxes than in 1914." Similarly, in the electoral campaign of December, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George promised the British that he would secure from the peace conference the entire payment of Great Britain's war bill by the Germans. Then came the claims of Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, Portugal, Poland, Greece, Armenia, Arabia, Syria, and the United States. As Turkey and Bulgaria were manifestly bankrupt and two-thirds of the population of the former Hapsburg Empire were of allied nationality the bills from everywhere were presented to Germany. They amounted in all to more than three times the total wealth of Germany as German wealth was computed before the war. It was evident as the discussion evolved in the commission on reparations and in the press that Germany could not and would not pay a tithe of the thousand billions. The German financial delegates were the first to arrive at Versailles. They took the ground that "reparations" did not include indemnities or pensions. Even in regard to reparations they demanded a business statement that could be controlled by experts. They frankly said that there was not the money in Germany to pay more than bare damages, and that if Germany were pushed to the wall the Ebert Government would follow the example of the Karolyi Government in Hungary.

When it was seen that the untold sums expected from Germany were a myth the countries which had suffered most-France and Belgium-demanded that they be considered as preferred creditors. They asked that their compensations be partly written off in territorial annexations and the rest guaranteed by an interallied occupation of the Rhine Provinces. More than this, it was proposed that the allied and associated powers form a group to share in common the total expenses of the war in proportion to their population, wealth, and sacrifices.

The fourth and last source of failure, unlike the other three I have outlined above, was due to the United States. President Wilson, seconded by the other delegates, by representatives on the commissions, and by most of the American press, fought against the fatal egotistical attitude of European statesmen and diplomatists. There was no lack of insistency upon the points of the American program, which involved mutual renunciation and disinterestedness. But when the Americans protested against annexations they were asked if they could propose some other sort of guaranties that would serve the

same purpose. They were silent. When the Americans protested against exaggerated indemnities they were asked if the United States would help pay for the war. Silence again. When the Americans protested against French and British and Italian colonial aggrandizement in Africa and the agreements creating spheres of influence in the Ottoman Empire they were asked if the United States would undertake the task of bringing liberated countries and races to selfgovernment. No assurances could we give.

When it came to the drawing up of the final statutes of the league of nations much of the opposition was from the United States. By insisting upon the recognition of the Monroe doctrine the basic principle of the convention was denatured. We made ourselves the champions also of the insertion of a clause providing for religious and political equality for all religions the world over. But we refused to live up to our ideals when the Japanese proposed an amendment which would add to the noble clause of President Wilson the two words 66 or races."

It is so easy to see the mote in the other fellow's eye. Let us realize our own shortcomings. We went to Paris burning with zeal to reform the world. We were impatient and scornful of the petty ambitions, the lack of straightforwardness, the unwillingness to make sacrifices, the shopkeeper's tricks of our associates. Idealism? There was none, we said, except among ourselves. We had a corner on disinterestedness, but when we were asked to assume responsibilities in the Near East, to mount guard on the Rhine, to see through the job that we had begun, to pay our share, and to put the Monroe doctrine and the Panama Canal and Asiatic immigration on the table we turned sorrowfully away from our vision of a durable world peace and went to live in a glass house like the other fellows.

[From Reconstruction, June, 1919.]

LEAGUE OF NATIONS COVENANT ANALYZED BY ONE WHO REGARDS IT AS A GREAT PERIL.

By AMOS PINCHOT.

We asked Mr. Pinchot to analyze for our readers the covenant of the proposed league of nations, because we believed they would be interested in the opinions of an able man who has no ax to grind. This covenant is perhaps the most important document ever drawn by man. It can not be considered too carefully. Mr. Pinchot here tells why he considers it a dangerous instrument.

I have always been a believer in a league of nations. When two months and a half ago I began to study the text of the proposed covenant, as read by Mr. Wilson in Paris on February 14, my impulse was to defend it if it were possible to do so. I set aside a week in which I did nothing but read the covenant and take notes. When the covenant was revised in Paris and given out by our State Department on April 27 (aside from the inclusion of the Monroe doctrine the covenant is practically unaltered, except in unessentials), I brought these notes up to date and formed them into a critical article, which will be published later.

If the conclusions I reach in this brief abstract of the notes are hostile to our entry into a league of nations based on the present

covenant, it is not out of disbelief in a league based on a different covenant. It is because I am convinced that the covenant as it stands will, in the long run, neither prevent nor tend to prevent great wars, though it may make small wars harder to initiate and shorter in duration when they do occur.

It is quite evident to any careful student of the subject who knows history that a league of nations as offered us now will divide the world into two immense camps, those inside and those outside, which, in spite of the pacific desires of their populations, will be forced to outdo each other in defensive and offensive preparations, almost unavoidably leading to another world war.

Unfortunately, the covenant of the league of nations was drawn by people who belonged to the old school of diplomacy, the diplomacy that has almost continuously kept the world at war, because it conceived peace and wrecked it on the same rock-force majeure.

CRITICIZES LEAGUE'S FRAMERS.

There are men in the world who are incapable of learning new things. In Europe they put them in the foreign office. Here they generally land in the State Department or join the Senate.

By such men the covenant was drawn-by men who ignore the economic causes which make war, by men who are believers in the establishment of a force majeure as the only salvation of the world. But because they craved new territory and new natural resources as much as they craved peace, the establishment of a definite force majeure has not been provided for by the covenant.

That is the covenant's capital error, from the point of view of its own framers.

Undoubtedly the present covenant will be defended by many sincere people who are well aware that it promises war in the not distant future but who hope that it will prevent immediate wars, and think that almost any attempt at international agreement, no matter how defective and undemocratic, is better than nothing at all. To them I would reply, first, that the covenant can and certainly should be amended, and that the hue and cry about signing what the diplomats of England drafted for us or having no league at all is buncombe.

And second, that an international agreement as repressive as the present covenant, an international agreement which undertakes to protect the iniquitious provisions of the secret treaties and places coercive and well-nigh absolute power in the hands of a small central council not elected and unresponsive to the various peoples, that an international agreement which excludes over half the civilized world, that a league which nevertheless undertakes to control all nations within and without by a system of drastic punishments including national starvation, will not last-and ought not to. It is not a case of having this league or none. It is a case of insisting on a different league or else soon finding ourselves without any.

PRIMARY PURPOSE NOT TO AVERT WAR.

The purposes of the present covenant is not primarily to insure peace by forming a league of nations. It is to compel the conquered nations to sign the peace treaty, to enforce the terms of the peace