They had not been fighting the Italians. They had been landed at the
request of the Italian Government to protect Italians, and the
American commander had been officially thanked by the Italian
authorities. The marines were not at war with Italy. They had acted
according to an established international practice which had nothing
to do with the League of Nations.
The scene of action was the Adriatic. The picture of that scene in the
Senators' heads at Washington was furnished, in this case probably
with intent to deceive, by a man who cared nothing about the Adriatic,
but much about defeating the League. To this picture the Senate
responded by a strengthening of its partisan differences over the
League.
5
Whether in this particular case the Senate was above or below its
normal standard, it is not necessary to decide. Nor whether the Senate
compares favorably with the House, or with other parliaments. At the
moment, I should like to think only about the world-wide spectacle of
men acting upon their environment, moved by stimuli from their
pseudo-environments. For when full allowance has been made for
deliberate fraud, political science has still to account for such
facts as two nations attacking one another, each convinced that it is
acting in self-defense, or two classes at war each certain that it
speaks for the common interest. They live, we are likely to say, in
different worlds.
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