TUMULTY.

A clear, inside view of the feeling of the man toward the Treaty, his deep heart interest in it, and his characterization of the opposition were disclosed in a speech delivered by him to the members of the Democratic National Committee at the White House on February 28, 1919. This speech is now published for the first time, and is as follows:

The real issue of the day, gentlemen, is the League of Nations, and I think we must be very careful to serve the country in the right way with regard to that issue. We ought not, as I know you already feel from the character of the action you have just taken—we ought not even to create the appearance of trying to make that a party issue. And I suggested this to Mr. Cummings and the others who sat by me: I think it would be wise if the several National Committeemen were to get in touch with their state organizations upon returning home and suggest this course of action—that the Democratic state organizations get into conference with the Republican state organizations and say to them: "Here is this great issue upon which the future peace of the world depends; it ought not to be made a party issue or to divide upon party lines; the country ought to support it regardless of party (as you stated in your resolution); now we propose to you that you pass resolutions supporting it, as we intend to do, and we will not anticipate you in the matter if you agree to that policy; let us stand back of it and not make a party issue of it." Of course, if they decline, then it is perfectly legitimate, it seems to me, for the Democratic organization if it pleases to pass resolutions, framing these resolutions in as non-partisan language as is possible, but nevertheless doing what citizens ought to do in matters of this sort. But not without first making it a matter of party record that it has made these approaches to the Republican organizations and has proposed this similarity of action. In that way we accomplish a double object. We put it up to them to support the real opinion of their own people and we get instructed by the resolutions, and we find where the weak spots are and where the fighting has to be done for this great issue. Because, believe me, gentlemen, the civilized world cannot afford to have us lose this fight. I tried to state in Boston what it would mean to the people of the world if the United States did not support this great ideal with cordiality, but I was not able to speak when I tried fully to express my thoughts. I tell you, frankly, I choked up; I could not do it. The thing reaches the depth of tragedy. There is a sense in which I can see that the hope entertained by the people of the world with regard to us is a tragical hope—tragical in this sense, that it is so great, so far-reaching, it runs out to such depths that we cannot in the nature of things satisfy it. The world cannot go as fast in the direction of ideal results as these people believe the United States can carry them, and that is what makes me choke up when I try to talk about it—the consciousness of what they want us to do and of our relative inadequacy. And yet there is a great deal that we can do, and the immediate thing that we can do is to have an overwhelming national endorsement of this great plan. If we have that we will have settled most of the immediate political difficulties in Europe. The present danger of the world—of course, I have to say this in the confidence of this company—but the present danger in this world is that the peoples of the world do not believe in their own governments. They believe these governments to be made up of the kind of men who have always run them, and who did not know how to keep them out of this war, did not know how to prepare them for war, and did not know how to settle international controversies in the past without making all sorts of compromising concessions. They do not believe in them, and therefore they have got to be buttressed by some outside power in which they do not believe. Perhaps it would not do for them to examine us too narrowly. We are by no means such ideal people as they believe us to be, but I can say that we are infinitely better than the others. We do purpose these things, we do purpose these great unselfish things; that is the glory of America, and if we can confirm that belief we have steadied the whole process of history in the immediate future; whereas if we do not confirm that belief I would not like to say what would happen in the way of utter dissolution of society.

The only thing that that ugly, poisonous thing called Bolshevism feeds on is the doubt of the man on the street of the essential integrity of the people he is depending on to do his governing. That is what it feeds on. No man in his senses would think that a lot of local Soviets could really run a government, but some of them are in a temper to have anything rather than the kind of thing they have been having; and they say to themselves: "Well, this may be bad but it is at least better and more immediately in touch with us than the other, and we will try it and see whether we cannot work something out of it."

So that our immediate duty, not as Democrats, but as American citizens, is to concert the most powerful campaign that was ever concerted in this country in favour of supporting the League of Nations and to put it up to everybody—the Republican organizations and every other organization—to say where they stand, and to make a record and explain this thing to the people.

In one sense it does not make any difference what the Constitution of the League of Nations is. This present constitution in my judgment is a very conservative and sound document. There are some things in it which I would have phrased otherwise. I am modest enough to believe that the American draft was better than this, but it is the result of as honest work as I ever knew to be done. Here we sat around the table where there were representatives of fourteen nations. The five great powers, so-called, gave themselves two delegates apiece and they allowed the other nine one delegate apiece. But it did not count by members—it counted by purpose.

For example, among the rest was a man whom I have come to admire so much that I have come to have a personal affection for him, and that is Mr. Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece, as genuine a friend of man as ever lived and as able a friend honest people ever had, and a man on whose face a glow comes when you state a great principle, and yet who is intensely practical and who was there to insist that nothing was to be done which would put the small nations of the world at the disposal of the big nations. So that he was the most influential spokesman of what may be called the small powers as contrasted with the great. But I merely single him out for the pleasure of paying him this tribute, and not because the others were less earnest in pursuing their purpose. They were a body of men who all felt this. Indeed, several of them said this to us: "The world expects not only, but demands of us that we shall do this thing successfully, and we cannot go away without doing it." There is not a statesman in that conference who would dare to go home saying that he had merely signed a treaty of peace no matter how excellent the terms of that treaty are, because he has received if not an official at least an influential mandate to see to it that something is done in addition which will make the thing stand after it is done; and he dare not go home without doing that. So that all around that table there was cooeperation—generous cooeperation of mind to make that document as good as we could make it. And I believe it is a thoroughly sound document. There is only one misleading sentence in it—only one sentence that conveys a wrong impression. That can, I dare say, be altered, though it is going to be extremely difficult to set up that fourteen-nation process again as will have to be done if any alteration is made.

The particular and most important thing to which every nation that joins the League agrees is this: That it won't fight on any question at all until it has done one of two things. If it is about a question that it considers suitable for arbitration it will submit it to arbitration. You know, Mr. Taft and other serious advocates of this general idea have tried to distinguish between justiciable and non- justiciable subjects, and while they have had more or less success with it, the success has not been satisfactory. You cannot define expressly the questions which nations would be willing to submit to arbitration. Some question of national pride may come in to upset the definition. So we said we would make them promise to submit every question that they considered suitable to arbitration and to abide by the result. If they do not regard it as suitable for arbitration they bind themselves to submit it to the consideration of the Executive Council for a period not exceeding six months, but they are not bound by the decision. It is an opinion, not a decision. But if a decision, a unanimous decision, is made, and one of the parties to the dispute accepts the decision, the other party does bind itself not to attack the party that accepts the opinion. Now in discussing that we saw this difficulty. Suppose that Power B is in possession of a piece of territory which Power A claims, and Power A wins its claim so far as the opinion of the Executive Council is concerned. And suppose that the power in possession of the territory accepts the decision but then simply stands pat and does nothing. It has got the territory. The other party, inasmuch as the party that has lost has accepted the decision, has bound itself not to attack it and cannot go by force of arms and take possession of the country. In order to cure that quandary we used a sentence which said that in case—I have forgotten the phraseology but it means this—in case any power refuses to carry out the decision the Executive Council was to consider the means by which it could be enforced. Now that apparently applies to both parties but was intended to apply to the non-active party which refuses to carry it out. And that sentence is open to a misconstruction. The Commission did not see that until after the report was made and I explained this to the General Conference. I made an explanation which was substantially the same as I have made to you, and that this should be of record may be sufficient to interpret that phrase, but probably not. It is not part of the Covenant and possibly an attempt ought to be made to alter it.

But I am wandering from my real point. My point is that this is a workable beginning of a thing that the world insists on. There is no foundation for it except the good faith of the parties, but there could not be any other foundation for an arrangement between nations.

The other night after dinner Senator Thomas, of Colorado, said: "Then after all it is not a guarantee of peace." Certainly not. Who said that it was? If you can invent an actual guarantee of peace you will be a benefactor of mankind, but no such guarantee has been found. But this comes as near being a guarantee of peace as you can get.

I had this interesting experience when the Covenant was framed. I found that I was the only member of the Committee who did not take it for granted that the members of the League would have the right to secede. I found there was a universal feeling that this treaty could be denounced in the usual way and that a state could withdraw. I demurred from that opinion and found myself in a minority of one, and I could not help saying to them that this would be very interesting on the other side of the water, that the only Southerner on this conference should deny the right of secession. But nevertheless it is instructive and interesting to learn that this is taken for granted; that it is not a covenant that you would have to continue to adhere to. I suppose that is a necessary assumption among sovereign states, but it would not be a very handsome thing to withdraw after we had entered upon it. The point is that it does rest upon the good faith of all the nations. Now the historic significance of it is this:

We are setting up right in the path that German ambition expected to tread a number of new states that, chiefly because of their newness, will for a long time be weak states. We are carving a piece of Poland out of Germany's side; we are creating an independent Bohemia below that, an independent Hungary below that, and enlarging Rumania, and we are rearranging the territorial divisions of the Balkan States. We are practically dissolving the Empire of Turkey and setting up under mandatories of the League of Nations a number of states in Asia Minor and Arabia which, except for the power of the mandatories, would be almost helpless against any invading or aggressive force, and that is exactly the old Berlin-to-Bagdad route. So that when you remember that there is at present a strong desire on the part of Austria to unite with Germany, you have the prospect of an industrial nation with seventy or eighty millions of people right in the heart of Europe, and to the southeast of it nothing but weakness, unless it is supported by the combined power of the world.

Unless you expect this structure built at Paris to be a house of cards, you have got to put into it the structural iron which will be afforded by the League of Nations. Take the history of the war that we have just been through. It is agreed by everybody that has expressed an opinion that if Germany had known that England would go in, she never would have started. What do you suppose she would have done if she had known that everybody else would have gone in? Of course she would never have started. If she had known that the world would have been against her, this war would not have occurred; and the League of Nations gives notice that if anything of that sort is tried again, the world will be against the nation that tries it, and with that assurance given that such a nation will have to fight the world, you may be sure that whatever illicit ambitions a nation may have, it cannot and will not attempt to realize them. But if they have not that assurance and can in the meantime set up an infinite network of intrigue such as we now know ran like a honeycomb through the world, then any arrangement will be broken down. This is the place where intrigue did accomplish the disintegration which made the realization of Germany's purposes almost possible. So that those people will have to make friends with their powerful neighbour Germany unless they have already made friends with all the rest of the world. So that we must have the League of Nations or else a repetition of the catastrophe we have just gone through.

Now if you put that case before the people of the United States and show them that without the League of Nations it is not worth while completing the treaty we are making in Paris, then you have got an argument which even an unidealistic people would respond to, and ours is not an unidealistic people but the most idealistic people in the world. Just let them catch the meaning which really underlies this and there won't be any doubt, as to what the response will be from; the hearts and from the judgments of the people of the United States.

I would hope, therefore, that forgetting elections for the time being we should devote our thought and our energies and our plans to this great business, to concert bi-partisan and non-partisan action, and by whatever sort of action, to concert every effort in support of this thing. I cannot imagine an orator being afforded a better theme, so trot out your orators and turn them loose, because they will have an inspiration in this that they have never had before, and I would like a guarantee that the best vocabulary they can mobilize won't be equal to the job. It surpasses past experience in the world and seems like a prospect of realizing what once seemed a remote hope of international morale. And you notice the basis of this thing. It guarantees the members of the League, guarantees to each their territorial integrity and political independence as against external aggression.

I found that all the other men around the conference table had a great respect for the right of revolution. We do not guarantee any state against what may happen inside itself, but we do guarantee against aggression from the outside, so that the family can be as lively as it pleases, and we know what generally happens to an interloper if you interfere in a family quarrel. There was a very interesting respect for the right of revolution; it may be because many of them thought it was nearer at hand than they had supposed and this immediate possibility breathed a respect in their minds. But whatever the reason was, they had a very great respect for it. I read the Virginia Bill of Rights very literally but not very elegantly to mean that any people is entitled to any kind of government it pleases and that it is none of our business to suggest or to influence the kind that it is going to have. Sometimes it will have a very riotous form of government, but that is none of our business. And I find that that is accepted, even with regard to Russia. Even conservative men like the representatives of Great Britain say it is not our business to dictate what kind of government Russia shall have. The only thing to do is to see if we can help them by conference and suggestion and recognition of the right elements to get together and not leave the country in a state of chaos.

It was for that reasonable purpose that we tried to have the Conference at a place I had never heard of before—a place called Prinkipos. I understand it is a place on the Bosphorus with fine summer hotels, etc., and I was abashed to admit that I had never heard of it—but having plenty of house room, we thought that we could get the several Russian elements together there and see if we could not get them to sit down in one room together and tell us what it was all about and what they intended to do. The Bolshevists had accepted, but had accepted in a way that was studiously insulting. They said they would come, and were perfectly ready to say beforehand that they were ready to pay the foreign debt and ready to make concessions in economic matters, and that they were even ready to make territorial readjustments, which meant, "we are dealing with perjured governments whose only interest is in striking a bargain, and if that is the price of European recognition and cooperation, we are ready to pay it."

I never saw anybody more angered than Mr. Lloyd George, who said: "We cannot let that insult go by. We are not after their money or their concessions or their territory. That is not the point. We are their friends who want to help them and must tell them so." We did not tell them so because to some of the people we had to deal with the payment of the foreign debt was a more interesting and important matter, but that will be made clear to them in conference, if they will believe it. But the Bolshevists, so far as we could get any taste of their flavour, are the most consummate sneaks in the world. I suppose because they know they have no high motives themselves, they do not believe that anybody else has. And Trotsky, having lived a few months in New York, was able to testify that the United States is in the hands of capitalists and does not serve anybody else's interests but the capitalists'. And the worst of it is, I think he honestly believes it. It would not have much effect if he didn't. Having received six dollars a week to write for a socialistic and anarchistic paper which believed that and printed it, and knowing how difficult it is to live on nothing but the wages of sin, he believes that the only wages paid here are the wages of sin.

But we cannot rescue Russia without having a united Europe. One of my colleagues in Paris said: "We could not go home and say we had made peace if we left half of Europe and half of Asia at war—because Russia constitutes half of Europe and Siberia constitutes half of Asia." And yet we may have to go home without composing these great territories, but if we go home with a League of Nations, there will be some power to solve this most perplexing problem.

And so from every point of view, it is obvious to the men in Paris, obvious to those who in their own hearts are most indifferent to the League of Nations, that we have to tie in the provisions of the Treaty with the League of Nations because the League of Nations is the heart of the Treaty. It is the only machinery. It is the only solid basis of masonry that is in the Treaty, and in saying that I know that I am expressing the opinion of all those with whom I have been conferring. I cannot imagine any greater historic glory for the party than to have it said that for the time being it is thinking not of elections, but of the salvation of the plain people of the world, and the plain people of the world are looking to us who call ourselves Democrats to prove to the utmost point of sacrifice that we are indeed Democrats, with a small d as well as a large D, that we are ready to put the whole power and influence of America at the disposal of free men everywhere in the world no matter what the sacrifice involved, no matter what the danger to the cause.

And I would like, if I am not tiresome, to leave this additional thought in your mind. I was one of the first advocates of the mandatory. I do not at all believe in handing over any more territory than has already been handed over to any sovereign. I do not believe in putting the people of the German territories at the disposition, unsubordinated disposition, of any great power, and therefore I was a warm advocate of the idea of General Smuts—who, by the way, is an extraordinary person—who propounded the theory that the pieces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the pieces of the Turkish Empire and the German colonies were all political units or territorial units which ought to be accepted in trust by the family of nations, and not turned over to any member of the family, and that therefore the League of Nations would have as one of its chief functions to act as trustee for these great areas of dismembered empires. And yet the embarrassing moment came when they asked if the United States would be willing to accept a mandatory. I had to say off-hand that it would not be willing. I have got to say off-hand that in the present state of American opinion, at any rate, it wants to observe what I may call without offense Pharisaical cleanliness and not take anything out of the pile. It is its point of pride that it does not want to seem to take anything even by way of superintendence. And of course they said: "That is very disappointing, for this reason" (The reason they stated in as complimentary terms as I could have stated it myself): "You would be the most acceptable mandatory to any one of these peoples, and very few of us, if any, would be acceptable." They said that in so many words, and it would greatly advance the peace of the world and the peace of mind of Europe if the United States would accept mandatories. I said: "I am perfectly willing to go home and stump the country and see if they will do it," but I could not truthfully say off-hand that they would, because I did not know. Now what I wanted to suggest is this: Personally, and just within the limits of this room, I can say very frankly that I think we ought to. I think there is a very promising beginning in regard to countries like Armenia. The whole heart of America has been engaged for Armenia. They know more about Armenia and its sufferings than they know about any other European area; we have colleges out there; we have great missionary enterprises, just as we have had Robert College in Constantinople. That is a part of the world where already American influence extends, a saving influence and an educating and an uplifting influence. Colleges like Beirut in Syria have spread their influence very much beyond the limits of Syria, all through the Arabian country and Mesopotamia and in the distant parts of Asia Minor, and I am not without hope that the people of the United States would find it acceptable to go in and be the trustee of the interests of the Armenian people and see to it that the unspeakable Turk and the almost equally difficult Kurd had their necks sat on long enough to teach them manners and give the industrious and earnest people of Armenia time to develop a country which is naturally rich with possibilities.

Now the place where they all want us to accept a mandate most is at Constantinople. I may say that it seems to be rather the consensus of opinion there that Constantinople ought to be internationalized. So that the present idea apparently is to delimit the territory around Constantinople to include the Straits and set up a mandate for that territory which will make those Straits open to the nations of the world without any conditions and make Constantinople truly international—an internationalized free city and a free port—and America is the only nation in the world that can undertake that mandate and have the rest of the world believe that it is undertaken in good faith that we do not mean to stay there and set up our own sovereignty. So that it would be a very serious matter for the confidence of the world in this treaty if the United States did not accept a mandate for Constantinople.

What I have to suggest is that questions of that sort ought to be ventilated very thoroughly. This will appeal to the people of the United States: Are you going to take advantage of this and not any of the burden? Are you going to put the burden on the bankrupt states of Europe? For almost all of them are bankrupt in the sense that they cannot undertake any new things. I think that will appeal to the American people: that they ought to take the burdens—for they are burdens. Nobody is going to get anything out of a mandatory of Constantinople or Armenia. It is a work of disinterested philanthropy. And if you first present that idea and then make tentative expositions of where we might go in as a mandatory, I think that the people will respond. If we went in at Constantinople, for example, I think it is true that almost all the influential men who are prominent in the affairs of Bulgaria and were graduates of Robert College would be immediately susceptible to American interests. They would take American guidance when they would not take any other guidance.

But I wish I could stay home and tackle this job with you. There is nothing I would like to do so much as really to say in parliamentary language what I think of the people that are opposing it. I would reserve the right in private to say in unparliamentary language what I think of them, but in public I would try to stick to parliamentary language. Because of all the blind and little, provincial people, they are the littlest and most contemptible. It is not their character so much that I have a contempt for, though that contempt is thoroughgoing, but their minds. They have not got even good working imitations of minds. They remind me of a man with a head that is not a head but is just a knot providentially put there to keep him from ravelling out, but why the Lord should not have been willing to let them ravel out I do not know, because they are of no use, and if I could really say what I think about them, it would be picturesque. But the beauty of it is that their ignorance and their provincialism can be made so perfectly visible. They have horizons that do not go beyond their parish; they do not even reach to the edges of the parish, because the other people know more than they do. The whole impulse of the modern time is against them. They are going to have the most conspicuously contemptible names in history. The gibbets that they are going to be executed on by future historians will scrape the heavens, they will be so high. They won't be turned in the direction of heaven at all, but they will be very tall, and I do not know any fate more terrible than to be exhibited in that future catalogue of the men who are utterly condemned by the whole spirit of humanity. If I did not despise them, I would be sorry for them.

Now I have sometimes a very cheering thought. On the fifth of March, 1921, I am going to begin to be an historian again instead of an active public man, and I am going to have the privilege of writing about these gentlemen without any restraints of propriety. The President, if my experience is a standard, is liable some day to burst by merely containing restrained gases. Anybody in the Senate or House can say any abusive thing he pleases about the President, but it shocks the sense of propriety of the whole country if the President says what he thinks about them. And that makes it very fortunate that the term of the President is limited, because no president could stand it for a number of years. But when the lid is off, I am going to resume my study of the dictionary to find adequate terms in which to describe the fatuity of these gentlemen with their poor little minds that never get anywhere but run around in a circle and think they are going somewhere. I cannot express my contempt for their intelligence, but because I think I know the people of the United States, I can predict their future with absolute certainty. I am not concerned as to the ultimate outcome of this thing at all, not for a moment, but I am concerned that the outcome should be brought about immediately, just as promptly as possible. So my hope is that we will all put on our war paint, not as Democrats but as Americans, get the true American pattern of war paint and a real hatchet and go out on the war path and get a collection of scalps that has never been excelled in the history of American warfare.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

JAPAN—SHANTUNG

One of the settlements embodied in the Versailles Treaty upon which the enemies of the President in this country concentrated their fires of wrath and hatred against the President was the so-called Shantung settlement. The partisan enemies of the President, realizing the irreconcilable antagonism of certain of our people to the Japanese, did everything they could to intensify this antagonism, picturing the President as one who had conceded something to Japan at the expense of helpless China.

Not love of China, but hatred of Woodrow Wilson led partisan Republicans, without careful investigation of the actual situation, to seize on the Shantung affair as an opportunity to embarrass the President. The ignorances and prejudices of many of our people on the subject of China played into the hands of those Republicans, whose main object was to injure the President and defeat the Treaty. Very few sought to understand the settlement or to ascertain the facts that formed the historic background of it.

These facts were clearly set forth by the President himself in a speech delivered at Los Angeles, California, on September 20, 1919. The President said:

Let me recall some circumstances which probably most of you have forgotten. I have to go back to the year 1898, for it was in March of that year that these cessions which formerly belonged to Germany were transferred to her by the Government of China. What had happened was that two German missionaries in China had been murdered. The Central Government at Peking had done everything that was in its power to do to quiet the local disturbances, to allay the local prejudice against foreigners which led to the murders, but had been unable to do so, and the German Government held them responsible, nevertheless, for the murder of the missionaries. It was not the missionaries that the German Government was interested in. That was a pretext. Germany insisted that, because this thing had happened for which the Peking Government could not really with justice be held responsible, a very large and important part of one of the richest provinces of China should be ceded to her for sovereign control, for a period of 99 years, that she should have the right to penetrate the interior of that province with a railway, and that she should have the right to exploit any ores that lay within 30 miles either side of that railway. She forced the Peking Government to say that they did it in gratitude to the German Government for certain services which she was supposed to have rendered but never did render. That was the beginning. I do not know whether any of the gentlemen who are criticizing the present Shantung settlement were in public affairs at that time or not, but I will tell you what happened, so far as this Government was concerned.

One of the most enlightened and humane presidents we have ever had was at the head of the Government—William McKinley, a man who loved his fellow men and believed in justice—and associated with him was one of our ablest secretaries of state—Mr. John Hay. The state of international law was such then that they did not feel at liberty to make even a protest against these concessions to Germany. Neither did they make any protest when, immediately following that, similar concessions were made to Russia, to Great Britain, and to France. It was almost immediately after that that China granted to Russia the right of the possession and control of Port Arthur and a portion of the region of Talienwan. Then England, not wishing to be outdone, although she had similar rights elsewhere in China, insisted upon a similar concession and got Weihaiwei. Then France insisted that she must have a port, and got it for 99 years. Not against one of those did the Government of the United States make any protest whatever. They only insisted that the door should not be shut in any of these regions against the trade of the United States. You have heard of Mr. Hay's policy of the open door. That was his policy of the open door— not the open door to the rights of China, but the open door to the goods of America. I want you to understand, my fellow countrymen, I am not criticizing this because, until we adopt the Covenant of the League of Nations, it is an unfriendly act for any government to interfere in the affairs of any other unless its own interests are immediately concerned. The only thing Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hay were at liberty to do was to call attention to the fact that the trade of the United States might be unfavourably affected and insist that in no circumstances it should be. They got from all of these powers the promise that it should not be a promise which was more or less kept. Following that came the war between Russia and Japan, and at the close of that war Japan got Port Arthur and all the rights which Russia enjoyed in China, just as she is now getting Shantung and the rights her recently defeated enemy had in China—an exactly similar operation. That peace that gave her Port Arthur was concluded, as you know, on the territory of the United States—at Portsmouth, N.H. Nobody dreamed of protesting against that. Japan had beaten Russia. Port Arthur did not at that time belong to China; it belonged for the period of the lease to Russia, and Japan was ceded what Japan had taken by the well-recognized processes of war.

Very well, at the opening of this war, Japan went and took Kiauchow and supplanted Germany in Shantung Province. The whole process is repeated, but repeated with a new sanction. In the meantime, after this present war began, England and France, not at the same time, but successively, feeling that it was essential that they should have the assistance of Japan on the Pacific, agreed that if Japan would go into this war and take whatever Germany had in the Pacific she should retain everything north of the equator which had belonged to Germany. That treaty now stands. That treaty absolutely binds Great Britain and France. Great Britain and France can not in honour, having offered Japan this inducement to enter the war and continue her operations, consent to an elimination of the Shantung provision from the present treaty. Very well, let us put these gentlemen who are objecting to the Shantung settlement to the test. Are they ready to fight Great Britain and France and Japan, who will have to stand together, in order to get this province back for China? I know they are not, and their interest in China is not the interest of assisting China, but of defeating the Treaty. They know beforehand that a modification of the Treaty in that respect cannot be obtained, and they are insisting upon what they know is impossible; but if they ratify the Treaty and accept the Covenant of the League of Nations they do put themselves in a position to assist China. They put themselves in that position for the very first time in the history of international engagements. They change the whole faith of international affairs, because after you have read the much-debated Article 10 of the Covenant, I advise you to read Article 11. Article 11 says that it shall be the friendly right of any member of the League to call attention at any time to anything, anywhere, that threatens to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the world depends. That in itself constitutes a revolution in international relationships. Anything that affects the peace of any part of the world is the business of every nation. It does not have simply to insist that its trade shall not be interfered with; it has the right to insist that the rights of mankind shall not be interfered with. Not only that, but back of this provision with regard to Shantung lies, as everybody knows or ought to know, a very honourable promise which was made by the Government of Japan in my presence in Paris, namely, that just as soon as possible after the ratification of this treaty they will return to China all sovereign rights in the Province of Shantung. Great Britain has not promised to return Weihaiwei; France has not promised to return her part. Japan has promised to relinquish all the sovereign rights which were acquired by Germany for the remaining 78 of the 99 years of the lease, and to retain only what other governments have in many other parts of China, namely, the right to build and operate the railway under a corporation and to exploit the mines in the immediate neighbourhood of that railway. In other words, she retains only the rights of economic concessionaries. Personally, I am frank to say that I think all of these nations have invaded some of the essential rights of China by going too far in the concessions which they have demanded, but that is an old story now, and we are beginning a new story. In the new story we all have the right to balk about what they have been doing and to convince them, by the pressure of the public opinion of the world, that a different course of action would be just and right. I am for helping China and not turning away from the only way in which I can help her. Those are the facts about Shantung.

Of all the important decisions of the Peace Conference, none worried the President so much as that relating to the Shantung settlement, and in a speech at Des Moines, on September 6, 1919, he expressed his dissatisfaction in the following words:

There is the settlement, which you have heard so much discussed, about that rich and ancient province of Shantung in China. I do not like that settlement any better than you do, but these were the circumstances: In order to induce Japan to cooperate in the war and clear the Pacific of the German power, England, and subsequently France, bound themselves without any qualifications to see to it that Japan got anything in China that Germany had and that Japan would take it away from her, upon the strength of which promise Japan proceeded to take away Kiauchow and occupy the portions of Shantung Province which had been ceded by China for a term of years to Germany. The most that could be got out of it was that in view of the fact that America had nothing to do with it, the Japanese were ready to promise that they would give up every item of sovereignty which Germany would otherwise have enjoyed in Shantung Province and return it without restriction to China, and that they would retain in the province only the economic concessions such as other nations already had elsewhere in China—though you do not hear anything about that—concessions in the railway and the mines which had become attached to the railway for operative purposes. But suppose that you say that is not enough. Very well, then, stay out of the Treaty, and how will that accomplish anything? England and France are bound and cannot escape their obligation. Are you going to institute a war against Japan and France and England to get Shantung back for China? That is an operation which does not commend itself to the present generation.

Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, in his book "What Wilson Did in Paris," says:

Of all the important decisions at the Peace Conference none worried the President so much as that relating to the disposition of the Shantung peninsula—and none, finally, satisfied him less. Not one of the problems he had to meet at Paris, serious as they all were, did he take more personally to heart than this. He told me on one occasion that he had been unable to sleep on the previous night for thinking of it.

Those last days before the Treaty was finished were among the hardest of the entire Conference. As I have said before, the most difficult and dangerous problems had inevitably been left to the last, and had all to be finally settled in those crowded days of late April.

Consider, for a moment, the exact situation at Paris on April 29th, when the Japanese-Chinese crises reached the explosive point.

It was on that very day that the German delegates were coming morosely into Versailles, ready for a treaty that was not yet finished. The Three—for Orlando had then withdrawn from the Conference—had been gradually lengthening their sessions, the discussions were longer and more acrimonious. They were tired out. Only six days before, on April 23rd, the High Council had been hopelessly deadlocked on the Italian question. The President had issued his bold message to the world regarding the disposition of Fiume and the Italian delegation departed from Paris with the expectation that their withdrawal would either force the hands of the Conference, or break it up.

While this crisis was at its height the Belgian delegation, which had long been restive over the non-settlement of Belgian claims for reparations, became insistent. They had no place in the Supreme Council and they were worried lest the French and British—neither of whom could begin to get enough money out of Germany to pay for its losses—would take the lion's share and leave Belgium unrestored. The little nations were always worried at Paris lest the big ones take everything and leave them nothing! Very little appeared in the news at the time concerning the Belgian demands, but they reached practically an ultimatum: if Belgium were not satisfied she also would withdraw from the Conference and refuse to sign the Treaty.

It was at this critical moment that the Chinese-Japanese question had to be settled. It had to be settled because the disposition of German rights in China (unlike Italian claims in the Adriatic) had to go into the German Treaty before it was presented to Brockdorff Rantzau and his delegates at Versailles; and because the Japanese would not sign the Treaty unless it was settled. The defection of Japan, added to that of Italy and the possible withdrawal of Belgium, would have made the situation desperate.

The two principal things that Japan wanted at the Peace Conference were: first, a recognition in the Covenant of the League of Nations of the "equality of the nations and the just treatment of their nationals"; and, second, the recognition of certain rights over the former German concessions in China (Shantung.)

After a struggle lasting all through the Conference, Japan had finally lost out, in the meeting of the League of Nations Commission on April 11th, in her first great contention. She was refused the recognition of racial or even national equality which she demanded although a majority of the nations represented on the League of Nations Commission agreed with her that her desire for such recognition was just and should find a place in the Covenant....

Few people realize how sharply the Japanese felt this hurt to their pride: and few people realize the meaning of this struggle, as a forerunner of one of the great coming struggles of civilization—the race struggle....

Having lost out in their first great contention the Japanese came to the settlement of their second demand with a feeling of irritation but with added determination. The Japanese delegates were the least expressive of any at the Conference: they said the least: but they were the firmest of any in hewing to the line of their interests and their agreements. It must not be forgotten also, in all fairness, that the Japanese delegates, not less than the British, French, and American, had their own domestic political problems, and opposition, and that there was a powerful demand in Japan that, while all the other nations were securing some return for their losses and sacrifices in the war, Japan should also get some return.

At the same time Japan was in a stronger position than any other of the Allied and Associated Powers except the United States. She had been little hurt, and much strengthened by the war. She was far distant from danger; she did not need the League of Nations as much as did the countries of Europe; and, more than anything else, she occupied a strong legal status, for her claims were supported by treaties both with China and the Allies; and she was, moreover, in a position, if she were rendered desperate, to take by force what she considered to be her rights if the Allies refused to accord them.

At a dark moment of the war, the spring of 1917, the British and French, in order to sharpen Japanese support of the allied cause, made private agreements to sustain the claims of Japan at the Peace Conference to German rights in Shantung. It thus happened, in the Council of Three, for Orlando had then gone home, that two of the powers, Great Britain and France, were bound by their pledged word to Japan. Indeed, the British argued that they felt themselves indebted to the Japanese not only as a long-friendly ally but for helping to keep the Pacific free of the enemy while Australian troops were being transported to Europe and thus relieving a great burden for the British fleet. It must not be forgotten that China was also bound by the Treaty and Notes of 1915 and the Notes of 1918 with Japan— although China vigorously asserted that all of these agreements were entered into upon her part under coercion by Japan. In fact, one of the Chinese delegates at Paris had actually signed one of the agreements which he was now asking the Conference to overthrow.

It was not only this wire entanglement of treaties which Mr. Wilson found in his advance, but it must be said, in all frankness, that, in opposing Japan's demands for economic privileges and a "sphere of influence" in China, he was also opposing a principle which every other strong nation at the Conference believed in and acted upon, if not in China, then elsewhere in the world. Japan asserted that she was only asking for the rights already conceded to other nations. Japan was thus in a very strong position in insisting upon her claims, and China in a very weak position.

In this crisis Mr. Wilson was face to face with difficult alternatives. If he stood stiffly for immediate justice to China, he would have to force Great Britain and France to break their pledged word with Japan. Even if he succeeded in doing this, he still would have had to face the probability, practically the certainty, that Japan would withdraw from the Conference and go home. This would not only keep Japan out of the League, but it would go far toward eventually disrupting the Peace Conference, already shaken by the withdrawal of Italy and the dangerous defection of Belgium. Such a weakening of the Peace Conference and of the Alliance of the Great Powers would have the immediate effect of encouraging the Germans not to sign the Treaty and of holding off in the hope that the forces of industrial unrest then spreading all over Europe might overwhelm France or Italy. It would also have a highly irritating effect upon all the bolshevist elements in Europe—increasing uncertainty, and the spread of anarchical conditions. With Japan out of the association of western nations there was also the possibility, voiced just at this time in both French and British newspapers, that she would begin building up alliances of her own in the East—possibly with Germany and Russia. Indeed, if the truth were told, this was probably the most important consideration of all in shaping the final decision. It was the plain issue between the recrudescence, in a new and more dangerous form, of the old system of military alliances and balances of power, and the new system of world organization in a league of nations. It was the militaristic Prussian idea against the American Wilsonian idea.

No statesman probably ever had a more difficult problem presented to him than did Mr. Wilson upon the momentous 29th of April, 1919. At that moment three things seemed of extreme importance if anything was to be saved out of the wreckage of the world. The first was a speedy peace, so that men everywhere might return to the work of production and reconstruction and the avenues of trade everywhere be opened. Peace and work! The second was of supreme importance—keeping the great Allies firmly welded together to steady a world which was threatened with anarchy. It was absolutely necessary to keep a going concern in the world! The third was to perpetuate this world organization in a league of nations: this the most important of all, for it had reference to the avalanche of new problems which were just ahead.

If the Conference were broken up, or even if Italy remained out, and Japan went out, these things would be impossible. On the other hand, if the Allies could be kept firmly together, peace established, and a league of nations brought into being, there was a chance of going forward with world reconstruction on the broadest lines, and of the full realization of the principles of justice laid down in the Armistice terms and accepted by all nations. The Treaty, after all, is no final settlement; it is only one step in the great process of world reconstruction.

It was with all these considerations in view that the Shantung settlement was made by the Council of Three sitting in the President's house in the Place des Etats-Unis—with the Japanese in full agreement.

This settlement was in two parts, the first set forth in the Treaty itself, and the second a special agreement of the three Great Powers with Japan. I find that this fact is not clear to many people, who look for the entire settlement in the Treaty itself.

Under sections 156, 157, and 158 of the Treaty all the rights at Kiauchow and in Shantung Province formerly belonging to Germany are transferred without reservation to Japan. This conforms broadly with the various treaties, and gives a proud nation what it considered its full rights.

On the other hand, the Japanese delegates at the Conference, on behalf of their government, made a voluntary agreement "to hand back the Shantung peninsula in full sovereignty to China, retaining only the economic privileges granted to Germany and the right to establish a settlement under the usual conditions at Tsingtao."

Under this agreement, by which Japan makes an unqualified recession of the sovereign rights in Shantung to China, she also agrees to remove all Japanese troops remaining on the peninsula "at the earliest possible time."

Japan thus gets only such rights as an economic concessionaire as are already possessed by one or two great powers and the whole future relationship between the two countries falls at once under the guarantee of the League of Nations, by the provisions of which the territorial integrity and political independence of China will be insured.

If the President had risked everything in standing for the immediate and complete realization of the Chinese demands, and had broken up the Conference upon that issue, it would not have put Japan either politically or economically out of China. Neither our people nor the British would go to war with Japan solely to keep her out of Shantung. The only hope of China in the future—and Wilson looks not only to the removal of the sphere of influence which Japan controls but to the removal of all other spheres of foreign influence in China—is through a firm world organization, a league of nations in which these problems can be brought up for peaceful settlement.... "The settlement, of course, was a compromise: a balance of considerations. It was the problem of the President, all through the Conference, when to 'accommodate' and when to use decided policies. 'The wisdom of the statesman,' said Cavour (quoted by Thayer in his admirable 'Life'), 'consists in discerning when the time has come for the one or the other.'"

"The Shantung decision is about as good a settlement as could be had out of a dirty past."

Even I felt bitterly critical of what seemed to me to be the President's surrender to Japan in the matter of Shantung. But when he returned and told me the whole story and explained the complicated and delicate world situation which confronted him, I agreed with him that he had obtained out of a bad mess the best possible settlement.

In addition to the various cabled messages which passed between the President and myself, which will be found in Appendix "C," was the following:

Received at The White House, Washington, April 30, 1919.

Paris TUMULTY, White House, Washington.

The Japanese-Chinese matter has been settled in a way which seems to me as satisfactory as could be got out of the tangle of treaties in which China herself was involved, and it is important that the exact facts should be known. I therefore send you the following for public use at such time as the matter may come under public discussion. In the Treaty all the rights at Kiao-Chau and in Shantung Province belonging to Germany are to be transferred without opposition to Japan, but Japan voluntarily engages, in answer to the questions put in Conference, that it will be her immediate policy to Quote hand back the surveyed peninsula in full sovereignty to China, retaining only the economic privileges granted to Germany and the right to establish a settlement under the usual conditions at Tsingtau. Owners of the railway will use special police only to insure security for traffic. They will be used for no other purpose. The police force will be composed of Chinese and such Japanese instructors as the directors of the railway may select will be appointed by the Chinese government End quote.

It was understood in addition that inasmuch as the sovereign rights receded to China were to be unqualified, all Japanese troops remaining on the peninsula should be withdrawn at the earliest possible time. Japan thus gets only such rights as an economic concessionaire as are possessed by one or two other great powers and are only too common in China, and the future relationship between the two countries falls at once under the guarantee of the League of Nations of territorial integrity and political independence. I find a general disposition to look with favour upon the proposal that at an early date throughout the mediation of the League of Nations all extraordinary foreign rights in China and all spheres of influence should be abrogated by the common consent of all the nations concerned. I regard the assurances given by Japan as very satisfactory in view of the complicated circumstances. Please do not give out any of the above as a quotation from me, but use it in some other form for public information at the right time.

WOODROW WILSON.



CHAPTER XXXIX

IRELAND

To one standing on the side-lines in the capital of the nation and witnessing the play of the ardent passions of the people of the Irish race, demanding that some affirmative action be taken by our government to bring about the realization of the right of self-determination for Ireland, it seemed as if the American President, Woodrow Wilson, who first gave utterance to the ideal of self-determination for all the oppressed peoples of the world, was woefully unmindful of the age-long struggle that Irishmen had been making to free their own beloved land from British domination. But to those, like myself, who were on the inside of affairs, it was evident that in every proper and legitimate way the American President was cautiously searching for efficient means to advance the cause of self-government in Ireland and to bring about a definite and satisfactory solution of this complicated problem.

Embarrassed as he was by a delicate diplomatic situation, which to a great extent governed his conduct, he was not free openly to espouse the cause of Ireland. To have done so would have been to add difficulties to an already chaotic world situation. He was compelled in what he was seeking to do for Ireland to move quietly and by informal conferences impressively to lay the case of Ireland before those who sought his counsel in the matter. Unfortunately, these quiet methods of helpfulness which he brought to the task were the things that drew the fire of criticism and even distrust of many men of the Irish race in America, who in their passionate devotion to the cause which lay so close to their hearts could see only a direct route to accomplishing what they had in mind.

Long before the European war the President and I had often discussed the Irish cause and how to make his influence felt in a way that would bring results without becoming involved in diplomatic snarls with Great Britain. He was of the opinion that the Irish problem could not be settled by force, for the spirit of Ireland, which for centuries had been demanding justice, was unconquerable. He pointed out to me on many occasions when we discussed this delicate matter, that the policy of force and reprisal which the English Government had for centuries practised in had but strengthened the tenacious purpose of the Irish people and had only succeeded in keeping under the surface the seething dissatisfaction of that indomitable race.

I recall that at the conclusion of one of our talks after a Cabinet meeting, shaking his head as if he despaired of a settlement, the President said: "European statesmen can never learn that humanity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy, and by justice, and not by jealousy and hatred." He was certain that the failure of England to find an adjustment was intensifying feeling not only in our own country, but throughout the world, and that the agitation for a settlement would spread like a contagion and would inevitably result in a great national crisis.

An interesting comment on the President's attitude toward the Irish question appears in an article in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1921. The article is by Joseph Fort Newton, in his series, "Preaching in London." The comment is as follows:

To-day a distinguished London minister told me a story about the President, for which he vouches. He had it from the late Sylvester Horne—Member of Parliament and minister of Whitefield's Chapel—who had known the President for years before he was elevated to his high office. Home happened to be in America—where he was always a welcome guest—before the war, shortly after the President was inaugurated, and he called at the White House to pay his respects. In the course of the talk, he expressed satisfaction that the relations between England and America would be in safe hands while the President was in office. The President said nothing, and Horne wondered at it. Finally he forced the issue, putting it as a question point-blank. The President said, addressing him in the familiar language of religious fellowship: "Brother Horne, one of the greatest calamities that has befallen mankind will come during my term of office. It will come from Germany. Go home and settle the Irish question, and there will be no doubt as to where America will stand."

In discussing the matter with me, he said: "The whole policy of Great Britain in its treatment of the Irish question has unfortunately been based upon a policy of fear and not a policy of trusting the Irish people. How magnificently the policy of trust and faith worked out in the case of the Boers. Unfortunately, the people of Ireland now believe that the basis of England's policy toward them is revenge, malice, and destruction. You remember, Tumulty, how the haters of the South in the days of reconstruction sought to poison Lincoln's mind by instilling into it everything that might lead him in his treatment of the South toward a policy of reprisal, but he contemptuously turned away from every suggestion as a base and ignoble thing. Faith on the part of Great Britain in the deep humanity and inherent generosity of the Irish people is the only force that will ever lead to a settlement of this question. English statesmen must realize that in the last analysis force never permanently settles anything. It only produces hatreds and resentments that make a solution of any question difficult and almost impossible. I have tried to impress upon the Englishmen with whom I have discussed this matter that there never can be a real comradeship between America and England until this issue is definitely settled and out of the way."

Many times in informal discussions with British representatives that came to the White House the President sought to impress upon them the necessity for a solution, pointing out to them how their failure was embarrassing our relations with Great Britain at every point. I am sure that if he could with propriety have done so, Woodrow Wilson would long ago have directly suggested to Great Britain a settlement of the Irish question, but, unfortunately, serious diplomatic obstacles lay in the way of an open espousal of the Irish cause. He was sadly aware that under international law no nation has the right to interest itself in anything that directly concerns the affairs of another friendly nation, for by the traditions of diplomacy such "interference" puts in jeopardy the cordial relations of the nations involved in such controversy.

Long before he became president, Woodrow Wilson had eloquently declared his attitude with reference to self-government for Ireland and had openly espoused the cause of Irish freedom. In a speech delivered at New Brunswick, New Jersey, on October 26, 1910, he said:

Have you read the papers recently attentively enough to notice the rumours that are coming across the waters? What are the rumours? The rumours are that the English programme includes, not only self- government for Ireland, but self government for Scotland, and the drawing together in London or somewhere else of a parliament which will represent the British Empire in a great confederated state upon the model, no doubt, of the United States of America, and having its power to the end of the world. What is at the bottom of that programme? At the bottom of it is the idea that no little group of men like the English people have the right to govern men in all parts of the world without drawing them into real substantial partnership, where their voice will count with equal weight with the voice of other parts of the country.

This voice that has been crying in Ireland, this voice for home rule, is a voice which is now supported by the opinion of the world; this impulse is a spirit which ought to be respected and recognized in the British Constitution. It means not mere vague talk of men's rights, men's emotions, and men's inveterate and traditional principles, but it means the embodiment of these things in something that is going to be done, that will look with hope to the programme that may come out of these conferences.

If those who conduct the Government of Great Britain are not careful the restlessness will spread with rapid agitation until the whole country is aflame, and then there will be revolution and a change of government.

In this speech he plainly indicated that his plan for the settlement of the Irish question was the establishment of some forum to which the cause of Ireland might be brought, where the full force of the public opinion of the world, including the United States, could be brought to play in a vigorous and whole-hearted insistence upon a solution of this world- disturbing question.

As we read the daily papers, containing accounts of the disturbances in Ireland, what a prophetic vision underlay the declaration contained in the speech of Woodrow Wilson in 1910!

If those who conduct the Government of Great Britain are not careful the restlessness will spread with rapid agitation until the whole country is aflame, and then there will be revolution and a change of government.

I recall his passionate resentment of the attitude and threats of Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Unionist forces in the British Parliament, when he read the following statement of Carson carried in the American Press, after the passage of Home Rule through the House of Lords: "In the event of this proposed parliament being thrust upon us, we solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves not to recognize its authority. I do not care two pence whether this is treason or not."

Discussing Carson's utterance the President said: "I would like to be in Mr. Asquith's place. I would show this rebel whether he would recognize the authority of the Government or flaunt it. He ought to be hanged for treason. If Asquith does not call this gentleman's bluff, the contagion of unrest and rebellion in Ireland will spread until only a major operation will save the Empire. Dallying with gentlemen of this kind who openly advocate revolution will only add to the difficulties. If those in authority in England will only act firmly now, their difficulties will be lessened. A little of the firmness and courage of Andrew Jackson would force a settlement of the Irish question right now."

The President did not agree with the friends of Irish freedom in America that coercive methods put upon England through the instrumentality of the United States could accomplish anything. When he left for the other side to take part in the Peace Conference, the future of Ireland was much in his thoughts, but his solution of the problem lay in the establishment of a forum under the League of Nations before which not only the cause of Ireland but the cause of any oppressed people might be brought to the judgment of mankind.

Ireland's affairs were always in the background of the President's thoughts and he welcomed conversations with those who were in a position to offer helpful suggestions. I append a correspondence, intimate in character and now for the first time "exposed to the public view," between the President, Mr. Sidney Brooks, a noted English writer, and myself:

Friday, April 20, 1917.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

After several months in America I am now returning to England, returning, I need not say, in a very happy mood and with the consciousness that the relations between our two countries are at length set fair. There is nothing nearer to my heart than improving them, and I believe I see how they could be improved and particularly how the last great obstacle to their betterment—I mean, of course, Ireland—could be lessened, if not removed. I should very greatly value an opportunity of setting before you some views I have formed on the matter, if an opportunity could be found before the arrival of the British Commission.

I leave Washington on Sunday and sail for England on the following Saturday, but not, I trust, without being able to pay you my respects and say my adieux in person.

Believe me, dear Mr. President,

Yours very sincerely, SIDNEY BROOKS.

THE PRESIDENT, The White House.

In forwarding this letter to the President, I accompanied it by the following note:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

April 20, 1917.

DEAR GOVERNOR:

I just had a little talk with Sidney Brooks who says he has been in correspondence with Lloyd George and Lord Northcliffe with reference to the Home Rule question. He believes that just a little push by you in your private talk with Mr. Balfour would put over home rule. He says if you could bring home to Balfour the amount of American public sentiment which favours it and how a denial of it is working to the disadvantage of England in this country, it would make a great impression. He says after the war there will of course be a great and generous cooperation between England and this country; but that there will never be genuine cooperation between the people of America and the people of England until the Irish question is settled.

Sincerely yours, TUMULTY.

The President replied to me in the following note:

DEAR TUMULTY:

Confidentially (for I beg that you will be careful not to speak of or intimate this), I have been doing a number of things about this which I hope may bear fruit.

THE PRESIDENT.

Mr. John D. Crimmins, a leading Irish sympathizer, addressed the following letter to the President:

Washington, D. C., April 28, 1917.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The press this morning leads to the impression that at some timely hour, in your own manner, you will have a word on the Irish problem that at this moment appears to be near solution.

It would be most timely and would have the heartfelt gratitude of millions of people in this and other lands who have long hoped, and many prayed, for Ireland as a small nation to have autonomy, thereby establishing peace with England and among English-speaking people. Then if an emergency should arise there would be all for one and one for all. Mr. President, you have gone a long step in that direction in declaring the rights of small nations—another step may be the means of reaching the goal for the Irish people.

Faithfully yours, JOHN D. CRIMMINS.

His Excellency, Woodrow Wilson.

The President read this letter with a great deal of interest and sent me the following note, evidencing his sincere interest in all that Mr. Crimmins had said:

DEAR TUMULTY:

You are right about Mr. Crimmins having been a good friend, but I don't like to write any letters on this subject at present. I would appreciate it very much if you would assure him of my interest and of your knowledge of the fact that I am showing in every way I possibly can my sympathy with the claim of Ireland for home rule.

THE PRESIDENT.

On December 3, 1919, Bishop Shahan, of the Catholic University, addressed a letter to the President in behalf of the rector and faculties of the Catholic University of America with reference to the question of Home Rule, to which the President replied:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

3 December, 1919.

MY DEAR BISHOP SHAHAN:

Allow me to acknowledge your letter of November 30th written in behalf of the rector and faculties of the Catholic University of America, and to say that it will be my endeavour in regard to every question which arises before the Peace Conference to do my utmost to bring about the realization of the principles to which your letter refers. The difficulties and delicacy of the task are very great, and I cannot confidently forecast what I can do. I can only say that I shall be watchful of every opportunity to insist upon the principles I have enunciated.

Cordially and sincerely yours, WOODROW WILSON.

The Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, Rector, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.

On December 3, 1918, he addressed a letter to Senator Thomas J. Walsh, of Montana, as follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

3 December, 1919.

MY DEAR SENATOR:

I appreciate the importance of a proper solution of the Irish question and thank you for the suggestions of your letter of yesterday. Until I get on the other side and find my footing in delicate matters of this sort I cannot forecast with any degree of confidence what influence I can exercise, but you may be sure that I shall keep this important interest in mind and shall use my influence at every opportunity to bring about a just and satisfactory solution.

I greatly value the expressions of your confidence and feel very much strengthened by them.

With the best wishes,

Cordially and sincerely yours, WOODROW WILSON.

Hon. Thomas J. Walsh, United States Senate.

While the President was in Paris, I constantly kept him in touch with the situation in this country, and that he was interested in bringing to the attention of the Peace Conference the cause of Ireland is made clear by the following cables that were exchanged between us.

On June 7, 1919, I cabled Admiral Grayson, for the President as follows:

The White House, Washington, 7 June, 1919.

You cannot overestimate real intensity of feeling behind Irish question here. It is growing every day and is not at all confined to Irishmen. The passage of resolution of sympathy with almost unanimous vote in Senate last night is but a slight evidence of interest here. I wish the President could do just a little for I fear reaction here upon League of Nations. If this situation could be straightened out, it would help a great deal.

TUMULTY.

The President himself replied to this cable, showing the depth of his interest in the matter:

Paris, 8 June, 1919.

I have tried to help in the Irish matter, but the extraordinary indiscretion of the American delegation over here has almost completely blocked everything.

WOODROW WILSON.

On June 9, 1919, I received a further cable from the President, as follows:

Paris, 9 June, 1919.

The American Committee of Irishmen have made it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to render the assistance we were diligently trying to render in the matter of bringing the Irish aspirations to the attention of the Peace Conference. By our unofficial activity in the matter we had practically cleared the way for the coming of the Irish Representatives to Paris when the American Commission went to Ireland and behaved in a way which so inflamed British opinion that the situation has got quite out of hand, and we are utterly at a loss how to act in the matter without involving the Government of the United States with the Government of Great Britain in a way which might create an actual breach between the two. I made an effort day before yesterday in this matter which shows, I am afraid, the utter futility of further efforts. I am distressed that the American Commission should have acted with such extreme indiscretion and lack of sense, and can at the moment see nothing further to do.

WOODROW WILSON.

To this cable I replied as follows:

The White House, Washington, 9 June, 1919.

Thanks for message about Ireland, Hope you will not allow indiscretions of American Commission to influence your judgment against Ireland. Lloyd George's mistakes in handling this will be his undoing, for it has in it the elements of a revolution. It is our own political situation here and the fate of the Treaty itself that concern me. In this country the Irish are united in this matter and in every large city and town are carrying on a propaganda, asking that Ireland be given the right of self-determination. George Creel, in a powerful article yesterday in the newspapers, said: Quote The question of Ireland cannot be ignored, either in honour or decency End quote. I trust you can say a word. Could you not ask that Irish delegates be given a chance to present their case to the Conference?

TUMULTY.

On June 25, 1919, I sent the following cable to the President:

General Maurice, in wonderful article in New York Times on League of Nations, says about Ireland: Quote One obvious need to complete the process of bringing all nations together is that we should show that we know what America did in the war, but there is another obvious need, which presents greater difficulties. We must have a policy in regard to Ireland, which we can explain to the American people. At present Ireland threatens to reopen all the rifts which comradeship in the war is closing End quote.

The New York Evening Post of last night prints the following editorial:

Quote Self-Government for the Irish people, short of independence, is a right and a necessity, and it is a satisfaction that once more a movement is under way for the establishment of Ireland on the basis which logic and history have determined—a dominion on an equal footing with the other dominions under the British crown End quote.

Frankly, this represents the opinion of the average man in America, without regard to race or religion. The arrival of De Valera in America is going to intensify the feeling and the Republicans will take full advantage of it. Now that the League of Nations is on its feet, we should take the lead in this matter. It would do more toward bringing about a real comradeship between England and America than anything that could happen. I think that the situation in Africa, India, and the seriousness of the situation in Canada, will inevitably force England to consider these matters. It is in anticipation of this that I am anxious to have you play a leading part in this situation. It would do much to make the League of Nations a living, vital force in the affairs of the world. There are no boundary lines between free peoples any more.

TUMULTY.

* * * * *

TUMULTY, White House, Washington.

Paris, June 27, 1919.

I entirely agree with the general tenor of your cable of the twenty- fifth about the Irish question and I firmly believe when the League of Nations is once organized it will afford a forum not now available for bringing the opinion of the world and of the United States in particular to bear on just such problems.

WOODROW WILSON.

Of course, the thing which lay close to Woodrow Wilson's heart was the setting up of the League of Nations. Unless England and France should consent to the establishment of a league as part of a world settlement, any solution of the Irish question through the influence of world opinion was not in the reckoning. The wise, prudent thing, therefore, to do was first to establish a world court before which the cause of any oppressed peoples might be brought. This is just what he had in mind and what he succeeded in doing. To have thrust a settlement of Ireland's affairs into the foreground of the Peace Conference and to have made it a sine qua non would have been futile and foolish and might have resulted in disaster. Unfortunately, the friends of Irish freedom, deprecating and bitterly resenting well-considered methods like this, were desirous of having the matter thrust into the early conferences at Paris. The President knew that England would never consent to this and would resent any attempt on his part to carry out idea. If the President had done so, England would undoubtedly have withdrawn from the Conference and thus the great cause of the League of Nations, which formed the foundation stone upon which the Armistice was based, would have gone by the board. The President was looking far beyond a mere recognition of the Irish Republic. He was seeking to accomplish its security and guarantee its permanency through the instrumentality of a world court like the League of Nations. What would it have availed Ireland to have been granted Dominion government or independence unless contemporaneously with the grant there was set up an instrumentality that would guarantee and protect it? The only thing upon which the Peace Conference functioned was the settlement of the affairs of those nations affected by the war.

Why didn't Wilson bring Ireland's cause to the attention of the Peace Conference? was the query which frequently reached us at the White House. The President in his Western speeches discussed this matter in the following way:

"It was not within the privilege of the Conference of peace to act upon the right of self-determination of any peoples except those which had been included in the territories of the defeated empires—that is to say, it was not then within their power—but the moment the Covenant of the League of Nations is adopted it becomes their right. If the desire for self- determination of any people in the world is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations it becomes the business of the League; it becomes the right of any member of the League to call attention to it; it becomes the function of the League to bring the whole process of the opinion of the world to bear upon that very matter.

"Article XI is the favourite article in the Treaty so far as I am concerned. It says that every matter which is likely to affect the peace of the world is everybody's business; that it shall be the friendly right of any nation to call attention of the League to anything that is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations, upon which the peace of the world depends, whether that matter immediately concerns the nation drawing attention to it or not. In other words, at present we have to mind our own business, under the rules of diplomacy and established custom. Under the covenant of the League of Nations we can mind other people's business, and anything that affects the peace of the world, whether we are parties to it or not, can by our delegates be brought to the attention of mankind. We can force a nation on the other side of the globe to bring to that bar of mankind any wrong that is afoot in that part of the world which is likely to affect the good understanding between nations, and we can oblige them to show cause why it should not be remedied. There is not an oppressed people in the world which cannot henceforth get a hearing at that forum, and you know what a hearing will mean if the cause of those people is just. The one thing that those doing injustice have most reason to dread is publicity and discussion. At present what is the state of international law and understanding? No nation has the right to call attention to anything that does not directly affect its own affairs. If it does, it cannot only be told to mind its own business, but it risks the cordial relationship between itself and the nation whose affairs it draws under discussion; whereas, under Article XI, which I had the honour of advocating, the very sensible provision is made that the peace of the world transcends all the susceptibilities of nations and governments, and that they are obliged to consent to discuss and explain anything which does affect the good understanding between nations."

Sir Frederick Pollock, in his valuable work on the League of Nations, comments pointedly on this privilege:

Various Irish writers, including some who deserve serious attention, have raised the question whether the standing problem of Irish autonomy can come before the League of Nations. There is only one way in which this could happen—namely, that the Government of the United States should declare Irish-American sympathy with unsatisfied nationalist claims in Ireland to be capable of disturbing good understanding between Great Britain and the United States. That is a possible event if a solution is not reached within a reasonable time, but it is more likely that a confidential intimation from the United States would not only precede a formal reference to the Council, but avoid the necessity for it.

The friends of Ireland in this country have often asked me the question: "Would Woodrow Wilson have intervened in behalf of Ireland?"

I can answer this question only by saying that Ireland has never had a truer friend than Woodrow Wilson. From the day that we went to war it has been his steadfast purpose to induce the Government of England to settle the Irish question justly and permanently. His statesmanlike approach to a settlement of the problem is the only one that holds hope of success.

As I completed this chapter, an article appeared in a Washington newspaper apparently confirmatory of the President's foresight, showing that by September, 1921, Mr. De Valera had arrived at the same view. The article seems to show Mr. De Valera as insisting that the British Government grant Ireland membership in the League of Nations as one of the guarantees of autonomy.

As for myself, I believe that Ireland is going to be free in company with the rest of the world and in accordance with a new world order which shall function through the machinery for justice and liberty which is provided for in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and is provided for nowhere else.



CHAPTER XL

PROHIBITION

One of the things for which the Wilson Administration was held to "strict accountability" was the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, establishing nation-wide prohibition.

Unfair critics of the President, in their foolish attempt to charge the Administration with every unusual happening in the eight years of Democratic control, had stated that the President was the real motive force that lay back of the movement to establish the Eighteenth Amendment as part of the fundamental law of the country. As a matter of fact, during the discussion of this amendment in the Senate and House, the President maintained toward it an attitude of absolute neutrality. While he was an ardent advocate of temperance, he felt that Congress in enforcing the amendment by the passage of the Volstead Act, so extreme and unreasonable in character, had gone a long way toward alienating the support of every temperance-loving citizen in the country, and that certain of its provisions had struck at the foundation of our government by its arbitrary interference with personal liberty and freedom. He felt that the practical unanimity with which the Eighteenth Amendment was supported arose from a nation-wide resentment against abuses by the American saloon and the economic evils that had grown out of the unorganized liquor traffic. He felt that it was unreasonable for Congress, in the Volstead Act, to declare any beverage containing an excess of one half of one per cent. of alcohol intoxicating and that to frame a law which arbitrarily places intoxicating and non-intoxicating beverages within the same classification was openly to invite mental resentment against it. He was of the opinion that it required no compromise or weakening of the Eighteenth Amendment in order to deal justly and fairly with the serious protests that followed the enactment into law of the Volstead Act. He was, therefore, in favour of permitting the manufacture and sale, under proper governmental regulations, of light wines and beers, which action in his opinion would make it much easier to enforce the amendment in its essential particulars and would help to end the illicit traffic in liquor which the Volstead Act fostered by its very severity. This would put back of the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment the public sentiment always necessary to the execution of laws. Satisfied with a reasonable recognition of their rights to personal liberty and control of their personal habits, he believed that the American people would be the readier to turn their attention to the grave issues of reconstruction and steadier in meeting these issues which would test to the utmost our capacity for progressive self-government.

Time and time again when we discussed the Volstead Act, he would say: "The wrong way of doing the right thing. You cannot regulate the morals and habits of a great cosmopolitan people by placing unreasonable restrictions upon their liberty and freedom. All such attempts can only end in failure and disappointment. In the last analysis, in these matters that seek to regulate personal habits and customs, public opinion is the great regulator."

In New Jersey, where he served as governor, the liquor question had been for many years a burning issue and had been thrust into every gubernatorial campaign up to the time when Woodrow Wilson as governor took hold of the situation. Many political futures had been wrecked and wasted by ambitious politicians who tried to "pussyfoot" on this issue. But there was no shying away from it by Woodrow Wilson. When the question was presented to him by the ardent advocates of the Anti-Saloon League early in his administration as governor, without evasion of any kind, he stated his views in the following letter addressed to the head of the Anti-Saloon League:

Executive Office, Trenton, New Jersey.

I am in favour of local option. I am a thorough believer in local self-government and believe that every self-governing community which constitutes a social unit should have the right to control the matter of the regulation or the withholding of licenses.

But the questions involved are social and moral, not political, and are not susceptible of being made parts of a party programme. Whenever they have been made the subject matter of party contests, they have cut the lines of party organization and party action athwart, to the utter confusion of political action in every other field. They have thrown every other question, however important, into the background and have made constructive party action impossible for long years together.

So far as I am myself concerned, therefore, I can never consent to have the question of local option made an issue between political parties in this state. My judgment is very clear in this matter. I do not believe that party programmes of the highest consequence to the political life of the state and the nation ought to be thrust to one side and hopelessly embarrassed for long periods together by making a political issue of a great question that is essentially non- political, non-partisan, moral and social in its nature.

Holding these views, that the liquor question was one which was "essentially non-political, non-partisan, moral and social in its nature," the President refused by any act of his to influence public opinion when the Eighteenth Amendment was up for consideration in the Senate and House.

He deeply resented and strenuously opposed the passage of war-time prohibition as uncalled for and unnecessary. In his opinion, it was not a food-conservation measure, but an out-and-out attempt by the anti-saloon forces to use the war emergency to declare the country "dry" by Congressional action. There was another reason for his attitude of opposition to war-time prohibition. He believed with an embargo placed upon beer, the consumption of whiskey, of which there were large stocks in the country, would be stimulated and increased to a great extent. In this opinion he was supported by Mr Herbert Hoover, Food Administrator. In a letter of May 28, 1918, to Senator Sheppard, the leader of the prohibition forces in the Senate, he explained his opposition to war-time prohibition in these words:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON

May 28, 1918.

HON. MORRIS SHEPPARD, United States Senate.

MY DEAR SENATOR:

I was very much distressed by the action of the House. I do not think that it is wise or fair to attempt to put such compulsion on the Executive in a matter in which he has already acted almost to the limit of his authority. What is almost entirely overlooked is that there were, as I am informed, very large stocks of whiskey in this country, and it seems to me quite certain that if the brewing of beer were prevented entirely, along with all other drinks, many of them harmless, which are derived from food and food stuffs, the consumption of whiskey would be stimulated and increased to a very considerable extent.

My own judgment is that it is wise and statesmanlike to let the situation stand as it is for the present, until at any rate I shall be apprised by the Food Administration that it is necessary in the way suggested still further to conserve the supply of food and food stuffs. The Food Administration has not thought it necessary to go any further than we have in that matter already gone.

I thank you most cordially, Senator, for your kindness in consulting me in this matter, which is of very considerable importance, and has a very distinct bearing upon many collateral questions.

Cordially and sincerely yours, WOODROW WILSON.

War-time prohibition was ingenuously made part of the Agricultural Appropriation Bill, which contained many items necessary for the effective prosecution of the war. So strongly did the President feel about the matter, that I am frank to say that if war-time prohibition had stood alone and was disconnected from any other bill, I believe it would have been vetoed.

After the Armistice, agitation at once began, inspired by the "dry" advocates throughout the country, to prolong war-time prohibition, but the President felt that the object and purpose of war-time prohibition, if any ever existed, having been served, it was only right, proper, and fair that there should be an immediate repeal of it, and that only resentment and restlessness throughout the country would follow the attempt to prolong war-time prohibition beyond the time provided in the statute which created it.