Act 4 — Scene II.
Reading edition
—Wilson’s house in the Place des Etats Unis, Paris, in the year 1919. A spring morning. The windows of the room look out upon an old-world square—made safe for democracy by American detectives.
Woodrow Wilson sits in a deep armchair by the table. His colleagues Clemenceau, David Lloyd George and Orlando are grouped around him.
Wilson: Gentlemen, a little merriment would season our labours. (Polite murmurs.) There was a man, a Confederate soldier, in our civil war, who soliloquised thus on a long hard march: “I love my country, and I’m fighting for my country; but if this war ends I’ll be dad-burned if I ever love another country.”
The Others (spiritlessly): Ha! Ha! Ha!
Wilson: Signor Orlando, you don’t laugh.
Orlando: No, sare.
Wilson: I’m sorry. The point of my story was somewhat directed to you. I feel rather like that Confederate soldier. I took the American people into war; but I don’t mean to have them dragged into another by a bad territorial settlement in the Adriatic!
Orlando: Well, Fiume can be waiting.
Wilson: All things can wait. But don’t, I beg you, fall into error. My view of that matter will never change. Monsieur Clemenceau, Gentlemen, be with me in this I entreat you. (A brief silence.) And now, Part I of the Treaty. We are agreed to incorporate the Covenant of the League of Nations there? (There is still silence.) Gentlemen, I can’t think that you hesitate——
Clemenceau: Sur cette question de la Société des Nations. Il est bien entendu, n’est ce pas, que la Traité de Garantie, La Pacte, entre La France, Les Etats Unis, et la Grande Bretagne——?
Wilson: Why, Mr. Lloyd George will answer for England, but I guess there’s no doubt at all concerning America.
Lloyd George: As the President says, I answer for Great Britain. I have agreed in her name that, in certain conditions, she shall be bound to act with France. On the fulfilment of those conditions, she will so act.
Clemenceau: Alors, en principe je suis d’accord.
Wilson: In principle. Yes, Monsieur. In principle we have never differed. But on the concrete proposition that this Covenant as drafted be embodied in the Treaty——?
Clemenceau: Well, I do not object.
Wilson: You take a weight from my mind.... I wish to be frank, Gentlemen. I am not happy about the voting of the British Empire in the Assembly of the League. I can’t disguise from you that it’s a difficult provision to explain to the American people. It may antagonise them. I make a final effort. Mr. Lloyd George, would your Dominions be irreconcilable to exercising their vote in one Empire delegation?
Lloyd George: They would reject it, Mr. President. I myself would move the rejection. (A brief pause.)
Wilson: I put the question formally. That the Covenant, as drafted, stand embodied in the Treaty of Peace. (Aye.) Gentlemen, I thank you for your forbearance. These questions of the Saar Valley and Danzig.... (They pass to other business.)
The Scene Closes.