Mr. Prank H. Simonds, the well-known American journalist, now in
Paris, contributed a very frank article on President Wilson to Tuesday's Times. He said that the President came to Europe to plead the cause of a League of Nations without having any definite or clear or coherent programme to propound. His Fourteen Pointe were not " a basis for a League of Nations or anything else." He could only veto suggestions that seemed to conflict with those points. " It fell to the British, logically and inevitably, to construct some framework." Mr. Simonds says that it soon became clear that the League could not be a super-State, as we could not give up our Navy nor the French their Army, and the American delegates could not guarantee that America would submit to the control of a League mainly composed of European nations. The mandatory plan was adopted for the ex-German colonies and Turkey to please the President, but he could not undertake the trusteeship even of Armenia. " He came to Europe to express certain principles. His coming awakened a sentimental emotion, and the influence of this emotion was, and remains, powerful in Paris. He could have had his way in many great things in addition if he had had a way, but he has not had one."
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