It is called upon to stamp as just what is unjust.
"We have a treaty of peace, but it will not bring permanent peace because it is founded on the shifting sands of self-interest." In the views thus expressed I was not alone.

A few days after they were written I was in London where I discussed the Treaty with several of the leading British statesmen.

I noted their opinions thus: "The consensus was that the Treaty was unwise and unworkable, that it was conceived in intrigue and fashioned in cupidity, and that it would produce rather than prevent wars." One of these leaders of political thought in Great Britain said that "the only apparent purpose of the League of Nations seems to be to perpetuate the series of unjust provisions which were being imposed." The day following my return from London, which was on May 17, I received Mr.Bullitt's letter of resignation and also letters from five of our principal experts protesting against the terms of peace and stating that they considered them to be an abandonment of the principles for which Americans had fought.

One of the officials, whose relations with the President were of a most intimate nature, said that he was in a quandary about resigning; that he did not think that the conditions in the Treaty would make for peace because they were too oppressive; that the obnoxious things in the Treaty were due to secret diplomacy; and that the President should have stuck rigidly to his principles, which he had not.

This official was evidently deeply incensed, but in the end he did not resign, nor did the five experts who sent letters, because they were told that it would seriously cripple the American Commission in the preparation of the Austrian Treaty if they did not continue to serve.
Another and more prominent adviser of the President felt very bitterly over the terms of peace.