"It is evident that the President is determined to incorporate in the peace treaty an elaborate scheme for the League of Nations which will excite all sorts of opposition at home and abroad and invite much discussion.
"The articles relating to the League ought to be few and brief. They will not be. They will be many and long. If we wait till they are accepted, it will be four or five months before peace is signed, and I fear to say how much longer it will take to have it ratified.
"It is perhaps foolish to prophesy, but I will take the chance. Two months from now we will still be haggling over the League of Nations and an exasperated world will be cursing us for not having made peace. I hope that I am a false prophet, but I fear my prophecy will come true. We are riding a hobby, and riding to a fall."
By the time the President returned from his triumphal journey to Rome I had completed the articles upon which I had been working; at least they were in form for discussion. At a conference at the Hôtel Crillon between President Wilson and the American Commissioners on January 7, I handed to him the draft articles saying that they were supplemental to my letter of December 23. He took them without comment and without making any reference to my unanswered letter.
The first two articles of the "International Agreement," as I termed the document, were identical in language with the memoranda dealing with a mutual covenant and with an international council which I had enclosed in my letter of December 23. It is needless, therefore, to repeat them here.
Article III of the so-called "Agreement" was entitled "Peaceful
Settlements of International Disputes," and read as follows:
"Clause 1
"In the event that there is a controversy between two or more members of the League of Nations which fails of settlement through diplomatic channels, one of the following means of settlement shall be employed:
"1. The parties to the controversy shall constitute a joint commission to investigate and report jointly or severally to their Governments the facts and make recommendations as to settlement. After such report a further effort shall be made to reach a diplomatic settlement of the controversy.
"2. The parties shall by agreement arrange for the submission of the controversy to arbitration mutually agreed upon, or to the Arbitral Tribunal hereinafter referred to.