Birkenhead was very outspoken in his opposition to a League of Nations, saying that it was a Utopian idea. He asked whether I had seen his book which had recently appeared, describing his visit to America. I told him I had not, and on the next day he sent me a copy bearing his inscription.
The following day we lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Samuel. He had held several Cabinet positions, and had been Secretary of the Home Office in the last Cabinet. He was defeated as candidate for Parliament in the last election. He told me he had recently returned from Paris from a Zionist Conference where his views and advice were desired. He stated that he was not a Zionist, but was in full sympathy with the Balfour Declaration to secure a homeland in Palestine with equal civil and religious rights for all nationalities. I told him that was precisely my position. His son was present, who was about twenty years of age, and had been in the British army, and was later transferred to the Zionist Corps.
That evening I dined with Sir Arthur Steele-Maitland, M.P., Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, where I met my old friend Viscount Bryce, who was then about eighty-two years of age. He was still in the best of health and his mind was as alert as ever. He brought me a copy of his recent brochure, "Proposals for the Prevention of Future Wars," Maitland strongly favored a League of Nations, and told me that after I arrived in Paris, if I found it necessary for the committee of the League of Nations Union to return there to reënforce the official delegates, I should write or wire him, and several of the members would go over to coöperate with our committee; and that he would write Lord Robert Cecil so that we might have a conference. I had similar letters from Lord Shaw and Sir Willoughby Dickinson.
We arrived in Paris on February 9th, where our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Mamelsdorf, had generously placed at our disposal their comfortable apartment in the rue Montaigne, which was most conveniently and centrally situated, and saved us the necessity and difficulty of securing accommodations, all the hotels being jammed full. The following morning I met Mr. Holt, who had admirably represented our committee at the several conferences that were held prior to my arrival; also Judge William H. Wadhams, Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews, Arthur Kuhn, secretary and legal adviser of our committee, besides several other members of our League.
With Mr. Holt I went to the Crillon Hotel, headquarters of the American Delegation, and had a conference with Colonel House, with whom arrangements were made for the fullest coöperation between our League and the Official Commission. We also conferred with Mr. Gordon Auchincloss, the son-in-law and secretary of Colonel House, who, after consulting with the latter, gave me in confidence a typewritten copy of the Articles of the League entitled: "Draft as Provisionally Approved." He said that the Colonel wanted me to have this, so that I might study it. I was told at the same time that the outlook for the adoption of a League was very discouraging because the French Delegation, of which Léon Bourgeois was the head, insisted upon the inclusion of two additional clauses, (1) the control by the League of the manufacture of all armaments and of all war industries, and (2) an international military force to defend the French frontier, which, Bourgeois insisted, quoting from a former speech of President Wilson, "was the frontier of civilization."
President Wilson had emphatically objected to the proposed additions.
When I informed Colonel House that I was about to call on Léon Bourgeois at his home across the Seine, he said, "By all means, go," and added that Bourgeois's attitude "had put the League on the rocks."
Mr. Holt, Mr. Kuhn, and I proceeded to Bourgeois's house, but when we arrived there late in the afternoon, we were told that M. Bourgeois was out, that he was then in the Senate and would not return until late. While there, however, I met my friend and colleague on the Hague Tribunal, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant. He said he would see to it that we met Bourgeois that evening. Mr. Holt, Mr. Kuhn, and I then returned to my apartment, and had hardly arrived there when my telephone rang and I was informed that M. Bourgeois and Baron d'Estournelles were on their way to my residence. They arrived promptly at seven o'clock.
In the course of the discussion, Bourgeois presented the interposing difficulties to which I have referred, giving the divergence of views between him and President Wilson and Colonel House. I explained to him, more fully than he seemed to have appreciated before, that the war-making power was lodged by our Constitution exclusively in Congress, and that even if the President should agree to the additional articles, if these articles would in any way conflict with the war-making power as provided for in the Constitution, President Wilson's assent would be without effect, and would never be ratified by our Senate.
At this point in our conversation, the telephone rang and M. Bourgeois was informed that the President of the Ministry, M. Clemenceau, desired to see him at once. Bourgeois said he would shortly return and hurriedly left us. In the meantime we continued the conversation with d'Estournelles, who, being familiar with our American system, was better able to appreciate the problem. I told him plainly that Colonel House had said to me that afternoon that "the League of Nations was on the rocks."