Among the leaders of political thought in the principal Allied countries, the reports of the President's reception in the United States were sufficiently conflicting to arouse doubt as to whether the American people were actually behind him in his plan for a League, and this doubt was not diminished by his proposed changes in the Covenant, which indicated that he was not in full control of the situation at home.
Two weeks after the President had resumed his duties as a negotiator and had begun the work of revising the Covenant, I made a memorandum of my views as to the situation that then existed.

The memorandum is as follows: "_March_ 25, 1919 "With the increasing military preparations and operations throughout Eastern Europe and the evident purpose of all these quarreling nations to ignore any idea of disarmament and to rely upon force to obtain and retain territory and rights, the League of Nations is being discussed with something like contempt by the cynical, hard-headed statesmen of those countries which are being put on a war-footing.

They are cautious and courteous out of regard for the President.

I doubt if the truth reaches him, but it comes to me from various sources.
"These men say that in theory the idea is all right and is an ideal to work toward, but that under present conditions it is not practical in preventing war.

They ask, what nation is going to rely on the guaranty in the Covenant if a jealous or hostile neighbor maintains a large army.