Accordingly, on March 11th, the delegates representing America, Great Britain, France, Greece, China, Jugo-Slavia, and Roumania assembled in London, in all about fifty in number. Besides myself as chairman, there attended, from America, Hamilton Holt, Arthur Kuhn, Dr. Henry Churchill King, Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews, Raymond V. Ingersoll, Dr. Frederick Lynch, and Edward Harding. Great Britain was represented by Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, Sir W. H. Dickinson, Major David Davies, M.P.; J. H. Thomas, M.P.; J. R. Clynes, M.P.; Sir A. Shirley Benn, M.P.; Sir Arthur Steele-Maitland, M.P.; Professor Gilbert Murray; Aneurin Williams, M.P.; H. Wickham Steed, and others. From France came M. Léon Bourgeois, Vice-Admiral Fournier, General Léon Durand, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, and others. Greece was represented by M. Venizelos and Professor Andreades. China was represented by Mr. Chang and Mr. Cheng; Jugo-Slavia by M. Yovanovitch; and Roumania by Professor E. Pangrati, Professor Negulesco, and Miss Helene Vacaresco.
A preliminary consultation was held on the 10th, with Professor Gilbert Murray in the chair, and next morning the first meeting of the conference was held at Caxton Hall, Westminster. Lord Shaw was elected chairman, and W. J. T. Griffith, secretary. The various articles of the Covenant were discussed, together with the amendments and changes proposed by the delegates from the several countries. On behalf of our delegation, I offered a resolution regarding the free exercise of religion as well as freedom from civil and political discrimination because of religion, which resolution after discussion was unanimously adopted. Nine separate resolutions were offered by the British delegates, some ten resolutions by the French delegates, and others by the Roumanian and the Chinese delegates. In all, there were three sessions, and the resolutions that were adopted M. Bourgeois was authorized to present to the allied prime ministers.
On the evening of the 12th, Major David Davies, on behalf of the League of Nations Union, gave a dinner at the Criterion Restaurant to M. Bourgeois, Dr. Nansen, M. Vandervelde, M. Venizelos, and me. Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, Secretary for Education, was toastmaster. Besides the delegates, a number of other prominent men were present. Several speeches were made laudatory of the Covenant and expressing high hopes for the new world order. Emphasis was laid upon the necessity of building up a body of opinion throughout the world to support the ideals of the League and of international peace.
After adjournment, I returned to Paris, and on March 24th made a report to President Wilson, who, a few days before, had returned from America, and sent him the resolution proposed by the American delegates, namely, to add a new article to the Covenant as follows:
The High Contracting Parties, realizing that religious discriminations give rise to internal dissatisfaction and unrest which militate against international concord, agree to secure and maintain in their respective countries, as well as in states and territories under the tutelage of other states acting as mandatories on behalf of the League, the free exercise of religion as well as freedom from civil and political discrimination because of adherence to any creed, religion or belief not inconsistent with public order or with public morals.
To this proposal President Wilson replied, saying: "I am indeed interested in a religious liberty article in the Covenant, but am trying to reach the matter in another way." He doubtless had in mind to cover it in treaties with the new nations for the protection of minorities, as was subsequently provided in the treaty with Poland and with the Balkan States.
At a luncheon on April 6th with the Russian group of refugee statesmen in Paris, I again met M. Sazonoff; M. de Giers, formerly ambassador at Constantinople; M. Bark, formerly Minister of Finance under the Government of the late Czar; and M. Boris Bakhmeteff, the Russian ambassador to the United States. They all spoke most disparagingly of Russian conditions at the time. M. Sazonoff criticized and complained of the Peace Conference, which, as he stated, had in no way condemned Russian Bolshevism, and its failure in so doing had encouraged the Bolsheviki. He said that had the Allies taken Petrograd, which could have been done with very little sacrifice, that would have been the beginning of the end of Bolshevism and would have rallied the Russian people, who would themselves have destroyed the Bolsheviki. He added that Russia's cruel treatment of the Jews under the Czar's Government was an indefensible wrong, and doubtless contributed to driving some of those who had suffered most into the ranks of the Bolsheviki.
While Sazonoff was talking, I wondered why he and some of his colleagues in the Ministry had not prevented the outrages against defenseless Jews, which resulted in the horrible pogroms which shocked the moral sensibility of the world.
It is true that Sazonoff belonged to the so-called liberals of Russia, and they did not have the courage to stand up for the basic principles of humanity when in office, which they now, doubtless, sincerely proclaim. Such is the withering and dispiriting effect of autocratic government upon its own highest officials, who often lack the courage, even if they have the vision, to correct abuses; and because of this moral cowardice they prepare the way and supply the motive that sooner or later expresses itself in revolution. Napoleon is reputed to have said that the treatment of the Jews in every country is the thermometer of that country's civilization.
Several times a week, during this period, conferences occurred in my apartment with representatives of the Eastern and Balkan States. Information had reached Paris that serious persecution of Jews was threatened in Prague and throughout Tchecko-Slovakia; and on March 25th a conference was arranged between M. Edouard Benès, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Tchecko-Slovak Republic, and several gentlemen representing the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish and Zionist Committee, consisting of Julian W. Mack, Judge of the United States Circuit Court; Professor Felix Frankfurter, of Harvard University; Aaron Aaronson, head of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Palestine; Lewis L. Strauss, the assistant of Herbert Hoover; and myself. Letters from Prague from two of the Food Administration officials reported that a press propaganda was carried on against Jews, and that several attacks upon them had been made; that a movement was on foot to deport a number of them to Pressburg, the hot-bed of Bolshevism.