March — undated, 1919

Yesterday House told me that he now realized that the only possible peace would not be the ideal settlement he had hoped for.

“One of our handicaps is that, at least in the eyes of Europe, the President has been in a measure discredited by the result of the November election. The American Congress is now in the hands of those who do not view the situation eye to eye with the President; and worse, much worse, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate is, to say the least, unfriendly to the Wilson policies. Between November the tenth and twelfth (1918, the Armistice intervening) we lost the ball. By some it is argued that we should have bound our allies by more definite terms than we did before victory was achieved; but what a poor crusade that would have been if we had shown the same want of confidence in the word of our allies as we did in the promises of our enemy. And after all, they did accept the Fourteen Points. As a result of our discussions, which reveal a distinct want of unanimity, the enemies of the President are greatly encouraged and the violent attacks upon him at home are having an unfortunate effect in Europe. Naturally it is being said, ‘Wilson cannot even carry his own people with him; he is no longer omnipotent—even in America.’”