President Wilson and his wife went shopping in Paris. She was a buxom lady who was devoted to him and took the best possible care of him, and wore in his honor a gorgeous purple gown and a hat with purple plumes. Everywhere they appeared there were ovations; the people of Europe rushed to manifest their faith in him, their hope, their adoration. It was something entirely spontaneous, unforeseen by the politicians and not a little disturbing to them. For this man talked about Democracy, and not merely before elections; he spoke as if he really believed in it - and these were dangerous times, when words were liable to explode, like the shells which were buried in the fields of France and went off in the faces of the peasants who tried to plow. This man talked about freedom of the seas which Britannia boasted of ruling; he talked about self-determination for those small peoples whom the statesmen of Europe were bent upon ruling.
President Wilson and his wife went to London, arriving on the day after Christmas, which the British call "Boxing Day." Enormous, throngs welcomed them, and the government provided a royal banquet at Buckingham Palace, making it the most gorgeous spectacle ever seen in that land of pageantry. Britain was the only country left in Europe that could put on such a show. The empire of the Tsar was now a land of starving proletarians, and the realm of the Kaiser was ruled by a saddlemaker; but Britannia still had the money, and her field marshals and generals and admirals and lord mayors still had the costumes. Before this shining assemblage the lean Presbyterian professor stood in his plain black clothes, and talked about the rights of the people; also, he failed to tell the lords and masters of the realm that they had won the war, an offense which they wouldn't forget.
President Wilson and his wife returned to Paris, and he made a speech before the Chamber of Deputies, and failed to praise the heroism which France had displayed. It was hard for his hearers to understand that this was a peace man, who had been forced into war with bitter reluctance, and now had but one thought in his mind, to make such a calamity impossible for the future. He went to Italy, and the hungry and tormented people turned out in a demonstration which frightened the ruling classes. Everywhere it was the same throughout Europe, in defeated lands as well as in victorious ones; the peasants cut out newspaper pictures of this new redeemer and pinned them onto the walls of their huts and burned candles before them. In Vienna the children who were dying wholesale of the diseases of malnutrition smiled happily and said: "It will soon be all right; President Wilson is coming." Never had a living man held so much power in his two hands; never did a living man have so many prayers said for him and to him.
Many among the staff of advisers had considered that it was a mistake for the President of the United States to come to Europe at this time. Professor Alston was among these; he didn't say much about it, wishing to be tactful, but Lanny knew what he thought, and why. If the President had remained in Washington, and had the proposals of the peace delegates submitted to him, his decisions would have come as from Mount Sinai; but when he descended into the arena, he would be just one more contestant, and would sacrifice his prestige and authority. He who had had no training in diplomacy would be pitted against men who had had little else since childhood. They knew a thousand arts of which he was ignorant; they would find out his weak points, they would browbeat him and weary him and trap him into unwise concessions.
Reading now about the President's triumphal tour, Lanny wondered if this would alter his chief's opinion. But Alston said it was a tragic fact that these millions of people were confused in their minds and easily swayed. They wanted peace, but also they wanted national gains at the expense of others, and they could be whipped up to excitement by a venal press, and by politicians who secretly served financial interests of a selfish kind. What the outcome of these struggles would be, no man alive could foretell; but it was going to be a grim fight, and all of them would have to stand together and back their great leader to the best of their abilities. So thought and whispered the technical advisers of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
I
THERE was not much holiday spirit in Paris that Christmas. Half the women were in mourning, and the other half doing the work of their men, who were still under arms, many of them in Germany, guarding the bridgeheads of the Rhine. The season was inclement, with cold and rain; food and fuel were scarce and disorganization general. The very rich were richer, but everybody else was poor, and anxiously peering through a curtain of fog to discern what new calamities lay ahead.
