The whole affair is a drastic example of how not to be
a President ! If a Foreign Minister or a Premier had laid
down the Fourteen Points and drafted the gospel of the
League of Nations, the business would have worked out
quite otherwise. Foreign Ministers and Premiers often
have to eat their words, or if their moral stomach revolts
thereagainst they resign and some one else takes their
place and digests the meal. It is their business. But
when the Head of a State is called on to do so it is very
different, especially when he is an elective head, on whose
success or failure depend far more than any single item
of policy. The Head of a State should never make a
pronunciamento, except in his electoral campaign, when
his expressions are necessarily more in the nature of
saintly aspirations than practical policies.
