I was assured that I was expected to speak only in the general terms of an association of nations without outlining any detailed plan therefor. On receipt of this assurance, I decided to go.
The party comprised ex-President Taft, President Lowell of Harvard; Dr. Henry van Dyke of Princeton; Dr. Elmer R. Brown, Dean of the Yale Divinity School; George Grafton Wilson, Professor of International Law at Harvard; Edward A. Filene, of Boston; and Mrs. Philip North Moore, of St. Louis, president of the National Council of Women. The three weeks, passed in a tour of the country with such able and delightful people, was thoroughly enjoyed.
On this journey, my acquaintance with Mr. Taft was transformed into a genuine friendship. On the first day out, it was “Mr. Morgenthau”; on the second, “Henry Morgenthau”; and on the third it became, and has since remained, “Henry.” He was a most delightful travelling companion and fellow-worker, good-humoured under all circumstances, uncomplaining under the heaviest tasks, the soul of friendliness and consideration: “To know him was to love him.” One day, as we were sitting in his compartment, discussing some details of the trip, he broke into one of his characteristic little chuckles:
“Here you have been opposing me politically all these years,” he said, “and now we’re together on the same platform for the good of the whole world. Doesn’t public service make strange compartment companions?”
Our trip was filled with hard work, exhausting hours, and not a few discomforts, but it brought us many moments of inspiration and some of amusement. Of the latter, one stands clear in my memory. We were standing unobserved at the railroad station of a small town in the Dakotas, when President Lowell thought we ought to do something “to get our blood in circulation” and challenged me to a foot race on the station platform.
“I’ll take a handicap—I’ll run backwards.”
His challenge was accepted, and he won the race. Then he confessed that running backwards was one of his accomplishments from undergraduate days.
The outstanding moments of the trip were those which immediately followed our receipt of the first draft of the League Covenant. We were steaming through Utah, when it was handed aboard. At once it was given the stenographers for manifolding, and none of us is likely to forget the impatience with which each awaited his copy, the eagerness with which each took it to his own compartment for study.
That evening President Lowell, Dr. Van Dyke, and myself were called to Mr. Taft’s compartment. He sat there, his face all aglow with satisfaction. He put his hand on his copy of the Covenant, which was lying on the table, and said:
“I am delighted to find it has teeth in it.”