Lodge's name out
was only a shade less impolitic than it would have been with his
name in. It gave Mr. Lodge his majority in the Senate and turned
the peace into a personal issue between the two "scholars in
politics."
By this time Mr. Wilson had lost his sense of actuality. He could
ask the nation for a Congress to his liking as a personal due. He
could condemn Mr. Lodge as an enemy of those purposes with which we
entered the war, simply because Mr. Lodge could hurt him as no
other man could. The President had been talking for some months to
the whole world and the whole world had listened with profound
attention. His mission had taken, unconsciously perhaps, a
Messianic character. His enemies were the enemies of God. The
ordinary metes and bounds of personality had broken down. The state
of mind revealed in the appeal as originally written was the state
of mind of the Peace Conference and of the fight over the Treaty
and the League which succeeded the Peace Conference. All that
happened afterwards, including the pitiful personal tragedy, had
become inevitable.
For a while at Paris amid the triumphs of his European reception
and the successes of the first few months up to the adoption of the
League covenant Mr. Wilson forgot Mr. Lodge, forgot him too
completely.
It was my fortune to see him at the apex of his career.
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