credited the Covenant's guaranty. The argument was logical and difficult to controvert. It was the one taken by delegates of the smaller nations who relied on the general guaranty to protect their countries from future aggressions on the part of their powerful neighbors. If the guaranty of the Covenant was sufficient protection for them, they declared that it ought to be sufficient for France. If France doubted its sufficiency, how could they be content with it?

Since my own judgment was against any form of guaranty imposing upon the United States either a legal or a moral obligation to employ coercive measures under certain conditions arising in international affairs, I could not conscientiously support the idea of the French treaty. This further departure from America's historic policy caused me to accept President Wilson's "guidance and direction... with increasing reluctance," as he aptly expressed it in his letter of February 11, 1920. We did not agree, we could not agree, since our points of view were so much at variance.

Yet, in spite of the divergence of our views as to the negotiations which constantly increased and became more and more pronounced during the six months at Paris, our personal relations continued unchanged; at least there was no outward evidence of the actual breach which existed. As there never had been the personal intimacy between the President and myself, such as existed in the case of Colonel House and a few others of his advisers, and as our inter

course had always been more or less formal in character, it was easier to continue the official relations that had previously prevailed. I presume that Mr. Wilson felt, as I did, that it would create an embarrassing situation in the negotiations if there was an open rupture between us or if my commission was withdrawn or surrendered and I returned to the United States before the Treaty of Peace was signed. The effect, too, upon the situation in the Senate would be to strengthen the opposition to the President's purposes and furnish his personal, as well as his political, enemies with new grounds for attacking him.

I think, however, that our reasons for avoiding a public break in our official relations were different. The President undoubtedly believed that such an event would jeopardize the acceptance of the Covenant by the United States Senate in view of the hostility to it which had already developed and which was supplemented by the bitter animosity to him personally which was undisguised. On my part, the chief reason for leaving the situation undisturbed was that I was fully convinced that my withdrawal from the American Commission would seriously delay the restoration of peace, possibly in the signature of the Treaty at Paris and certainly in its ratification at Washington. Considering that the time had passed to make an attempt to change Mr. Wilson's views on any fundamental principle, and believing it a duty to place no obstacle in the way of the signature and ratification of the Treaty of Peace with Germany, I felt that there was no

course for me as a representative of the United States other than to obey the President's orders however strong my personal inclination might be to refuse to follow a line of action which seemed to me wrong in principle and unwise in policy.

In view of the subsequent contest between the President and the opposition Senators over the Treaty of Versailles, resulting in its non-ratification and the consequent delay in the restoration of a state of peace between the United States and Germany, my failure at Paris to decline to follow the President may be open to criticism, if not to censure. But it can hardly be considered just to pass judgment on my conduct by what occurred after the signature of the Treaty unless what would occur was a foregone conclusion, and at that time it was not even suggested that the Treaty would fail of ratification. The decision had to be made under the conditions and expectations which then prevailed. Unquestionably there was on June 28, 1919, a common belief that the President would compose his differences with a sufficient number of the Republican Senators to obtain the necessary consent of two thirds of the Senate to the ratification of the Treaty, and that the delay in senatorial action would be brief. I personally believed that that would be the result, although Mr. Wilson's experience in Washington in February and the rigid attitude, which he then assumed, might have been a warning as to the future. Seeing the situation as I did, no man would have been willing to imperil immediate

ratification by resigning as Commissioner on the ground that he was opposed to the President's policies. A return to peace was at stake, and peace was the supreme need of the world, the universal appeal of all peoples. I could not conscientiously assume the responsibility of placing any obstacle in the way of a return to peace at the earliest possible moment. It would have been to do the very thing which I condemned in the President when he prevented an early signing of the peace by insisting on the acceptance of the Covenant of the League of Nations as a condition precedent. Whatever the consequence of my action would have been, whether it resulted in delay or in defeat of ratification, I should have felt guilty of having prevented an immediate peace which from the first seemed to me vitally important to all nations. Personal feelings and even personal beliefs were insufficient to excuse such action.

CHAPTER XVI

LACK OF AN AMERICAN PROGRAMME

HAVING reviewed the radical differences between the President and myself in regard to the League of Nations and the inclusion of the Covenant in the Treaty of Peace with Germany, it is necessary to revert to the early days of the negotiations at Paris in order to explain the divergence of our views as to the necessity of a definite programme for the American Commission to direct it in its work and to guide its members in their intercourse with the delegates of other countries.

If the President had a programme, other than the general principles and the few territorial settlements included in his Fourteen Points, and the generalities contained in his "subsequent addresses," he did not show a copy of the programme to the Commissioners or advise them of its contents. The natural conclusion was that he had never worked out in detail the application of his announced principles or put into concrete form the specific settlements which he had declared ought to be in the terms of peace. The definition of the principles, the interpretation of the policies, and the detailing of the provisions regarding territorial settlements were not apparently attempted by Mr. Wilson. They were in large measure left uncertain by the phrases in which they were delivered. Without authoritative explanation, interpretation, or application to actual