Washington, November 27th

I must try to be fair to Lodge, although it is difficult m view of the developments of the last two weeks (reference, no doubt, to the vote in the Senate on November 19th). At the time of my talks with him, first in his little room in the Capitol itself, not in the office building, and the final talk in the library of his house on Massachusettes Avenue the following evening, I did not receive the impression that the Senator was out to defeat the Treaty and scrap the Covenant, although he did express the opinion that it had been unwise to intertwine” these great documents. Indeed, I concluded—and his words justified my conclusion—that once the changes he advocated were accepted and all commitments under the Treaty subjected to review by what he referred to several times as the “constitutional authority,” the Senate, the ratifying power, and the House, which would hold the purse strings, his opposition would cease. He also believed this would be the attitude of his friends who were at the time opposed to the Treaty in the form it was before Congress.

The Colonel is of the opinion that the stiffening attitude of Lodge and the others who now are called the “irreconcilables” is due to the growing opposition throughout the country. That it is growing cannot be denied. Now that Wilson is perforce silent there is certainly no one competent to take his place and “sell” the Treaty to the people. But I have another impression which I shall keep to myself—and my diary. I think Lodge was hurt in his vanity, which is enormous, by the fact that the President did not accept with enthusiasm the olive branch, if you can call it that, which he extended through House, of which I was the humble intermediary and bearer. This is a situation about which we can do nothing. Doubtless with the best intentions, the President is kept a prisoner in his sickroom by Mrs. Wilson and Grayson. Even the secretary, Tumulty, is not admitted, and all the efforts of House and his friends to establish relations with our stricken leader have failed. Lodge may well think that with his “accustomed arrogance” the President has snubbed him; on the other hand, the olive branch may never have reached him—altogether an unfortunate mess.