it would have been useless to find fault with the report, especially if the objections related to the fundamental ideas of the organization which it was intended to create.  The President having in the report declared the American policy, his commissioned representatives were bound to acquiesce in his decision whatever their personal views were.  Acquiescence or resignation was the choice, and resignation would have undoubtedly caused an unfortunate, if not a critical, situation.  In the circumstances acquiescence seemed the only practical and proper course.

The fact that in ten meetings and in a week and a half a Commission composed of fifteen members, ten of whom represented the Five Great Powers and five of whom represented the lesser powers (to which were later added four others), completed the drafting of a detailed plan of a League of Nations, is sufficient in itself to raise doubts as to the thoroughness with which the work was done and as to the care with which the various plans and numerous provisions proposed were studied, compared, and discussed.  It gives the impression that many clauses were accepted under the pressing necessity of ending the Commission’s labors within a fixed time.  The document itself bears evidence of the haste with which it was prepared, and is almost conclusive proof in itself that it was adopted through personal influence rather than because of belief in the wisdom of all its provisions.

The Covenant of the League of Nations was intended to be the greatest international compact that had ever been written.  It was to be the Maxima Charta of mankind securing to the nations their rights and liberties and uniting them for the preservation of universal peace.  To harmonize the conflicting views of the members of the Commission—­and it was well known that they were conflicting—­and to produce in eleven days a world charter, which would contain the elements of greatness or even of perpetuity, was on the face of it an undertaking impossible of accomplishment.  The document which was produced sufficiently establishes the truth of this assertion.

It required a dominant personality on the Commission to force through a detailed plan of a League in so short a time.  President Wilson was such a personality.  By adopting the scheme of an oligarchy of the Great Powers he silenced the dangerous opposition of the French and British members of the Commission who willingly passed over minor defects in the plan provided this Concert of Powers, this Quintuple Alliance, was incorporated in the Covenant.  And for the same reason it may be assumed the Japanese and Italians found the President’s plan acceptable.  Mr. Wilson won a great personal triumph, but he did so by surrendering the fundamental principle of the equality of nations.  In his eagerness to “make the world safe for democracy” he abandoned international democracy and became the advocate of international autocracy.