CHAPTER XVI
PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE
The League to Enforce Peace goes into action—Taft recalls that Roosevelt favored a League of Nations—I sail for Europe as chairman of the overseas committee—England's youthful Lord Chancellor—Bryce at the age of eighty-two—On to Paris—Conferences with Colonel House—House declares that the League of Nations is "on the rocks"—Bourgeois comes to our apartment—He is persuaded to accept and support the Covenant as provisionally presented—Wilson congratulates me—The President addresses the correspondents—At the Plenary Session—An imposing spectacle—Clemenceau brusquely opens the session—President Wilson speaks for 1,200,000,000 people—Significance of the term "Covenant"—Bourgeois accepts text as drafted, but offers amendments for political effect—Japan voices her ancient grievance—The golden chapter in the history of civilization—Impressions of General Smuts—Sir Robert Borden opens fire on Article X—At a Washington's Birthday luncheon with General Pershing—The General's nervousness at prospect of having to make a speech—Sazonoff tells me about the Czar—A luncheon to Ambassador Sharp and myself—Concerning the side-tracking of Secretary Lansing—Taft's efforts at home on behalf of a League of Nations—Conferences with Venizelos—Serbia's claims—Meeting in London of allied societies for a League of Nations—Religious liberty resolution offered and adopted—I confer with President Wilson in Paris—A luncheon with Russian refugee statesmen—Excitement regarding the Monroe Doctrine article—My address at the Sorbonne—The Covenant of the League of Nations—Colonel House urges me to return to America—Alexander Kerensky—United States Senate vigorously debates the Covenant—Our efforts to secure its adoption—World policies are subordinated to home politics—Conclusion.
Now that the curtain of armistice had descended upon the world's most devastating war, the League to Enforce Peace was endeavoring to coöperate in every possible way with President Wilson and the official delegates to the Peace Conference, and with similar organizations in Europe, to bring into existence a League of Nations.
I had been made chairman of the overseas committee, and on the afternoon of Theodore Roosevelt's funeral, former President Taft and I met to confer regarding the work to be done. Both of us were very much depressed by the death of our friend. Taft felt grateful that "Theodore" (as he always called Roosevelt) and he had some months earlier reëstablished their long-time former friendship, which had unhappily been interrupted by political events.
Mr. Taft courteously told me that he was glad that I was going to Paris, and that he believed I might render a great service in helping to secure an effective League of Nations. He hoped I would have conferences with Balfour, Lloyd George, and Léon Bourgeois, and that I would be able to show them what kind of a League we, and as we thought, the American public generally, wanted. At my request, Taft agreed to write me a letter, signed by himself as president of the League to Enforce Peace, and by A. Lawrence Lowell, chairman of the Executive Committee, giving me full authority to take whatever action in Europe I might consider wise. I told Taft that I wanted a letter which should expressly state, among other things, that I was to support our official delegates, as it would not do for America to show a divided front. He told me, what I also had known from conversations with Roosevelt, that Roosevelt had latterly expressed himself in favor of such a League of Nations as we stood for. I reminded Taft that Roosevelt had been the first in recent years to emphasize the subject of a League of Nations, having done so in his Nobel Peace Prize address.
The committee to represent at Paris the League to Enforce Peace consisted of myself as chairman, Hamilton Holt as vice-chairman, and such other members of the League as might be in Paris at that time. Mr. Holt, after consulting me as to methods and plan of action pending my arrival, had left New York on December 28th. I had postponed my departure for Paris until I could learn of my son Roger's departure from Siberia.
On January 25, 1919, I left New York, reaching London on February 4th, where I promptly conferred with the members of the British League of Nations Union. Sir Willoughby Dickinson, M.P., gave me full details of the meetings that had been held by the English, French, and Italian leagues in Paris, at which our League was represented by Hamilton Holt. I also had a consultation with Lord Shaw, the chairman of the conference of delegates, who gave me a copy of the resolutions that had been adopted.
We remained in London several days, and while there dined with our new ambassador, John W. Davis, formerly the Solicitor-General of the United States. Both he and Mrs. Davis, in the short time they had been in London, had won the esteem of official England. At this dinner I had a long conversation with the new Lord Chancellor, Birkenhead, formerly Sir Frederick Smith, who held a distinguished position at the British Bar, and had been Attorney-General in the last Cabinet. In the latter part of 1917 he had visited the United States, where I had met him, and where he had made a number of addresses in the leading cities, as well as in Canada. He was then only forty-seven years of age, but looked much younger, and therefore quite unlike the typical Lord Chancellor robed in venerable dignity. He told me that he was the youngest Lord Chancellor, with one exception, that had ever sat on the woolsack. He had the youthful and vivacious face of a man in the thirties. He said that nothing would please him more than, when he was no longer Lord Chancellor, to practice law in America, but he said that precedent would not permit a former Lord Chancellor to return to the bar and practice his profession.