As the repository of international controversies requiring long and careful consideration it may live and be useful.
"My impression is that the principal sponsors for the League are searching through the numerous disputes which are clogging the wheels of the Conference, seizing upon every one which can possibly be referred, and heaping them on the League of Nations to give it standing as a useful and necessary adjunct to the Treaty.
"At least that is an interesting view of what is taking place and opens a wide field for speculation as to the future of the League and the verdict which history will render as to its origin, its nature, and its real value." I quote this memorandum because it gives my thoughts at the time concerning the process of weaving the League into the terms of peace as the President had threatened to do.

I thought then that it had a double purpose, to give a practical reason for the existence of the League and to make certain the ratification of the Covenant by the Senate.

No fact has since developed which has induced me to change my opinion.
In consequence of the functions which were added to the League, the character of the League itself underwent a change.

Instead of an agency created solely for the prevention of international wars, it was converted into an agency to carry out the terms of peace.

Its idealistic conception was subordinated to the materialistic purpose of confirming to the victorious nations the rewards of victory.