May 4, 1919

In our walk today through the Tuileries gardens Colonel House said the Big Four are as far apart as the poles on the knotty question of what to do with Upper Silesia. Then he added, “I want you to tell me more fully your thought on this question.”

I told him that as far as Upper Silesia was concerned I had little personal experience but I had secured a great deal regarding the efforts and the methods of the Berlin government, acting under the instigation of the great territorial lords, to Germanize Posen, West Prussia, and other districts where it was desired to get rid of large Polish populations. During 1889, and again in the following year, I had visited many of these districts as a special correspondent of the New York Herald and had reported fairly and fully what I saw. Large sums were voted by the Reichstag to swing the forced sales of farms long held by Poles and to launch land banks whose only business was to bring in German settlers from other districts, at great expense to the imperial treasury, and above all to expel the unfortunate Poles, bag and baggage.

“Of course, the Great Four know little or nothing of those highhanded proceedings,” I argued, “or of those ruthless mass expulsions; and being ignorant of the antecedent circumstances, the idea of a plebiscite may appeal to them; but as a matter of fact, if put into effect in the districts where the German land-robbers have been successful, it would give the sanction of law and a general amnesty to as highhanded an act of oppression as was ever enforced by a supposedly civilized people.” I did not conceal the fact that there was at least one pleasant feature in the ugly episode, and that is that in many districts the Poles have held fast. The German settlers, brought in at great expense, have proved shiftless, with the result that the imperial treasury is in the red for at least one hundred million dollars and the Prussian treasury even more—the only lasting result of this inhuman crusade that failed.

The Colonel asked me to draw up a memo to be submitted to the President setting forth what I had actually seen in the contested districts; also copies of the legislation under which the Disconto Bank of Berlin and its local agencies acted. This I was able to do the following day.

I was indeed glad to have had an opportunity to testify to what I am sure from personal observation is the true situation. Lloyd George, however, still insists upon the plebiscite and Clemenceau opposes it. Mr. Wilson would as always like to see justice done, but he does not want the Conference to come to grief over the Polish problem, important as it is. Clemenceau demands that Paderewski and Dmowski be heard on this vital question. They certainly should be.

[Some days later Paderewski and Dmowski were heard but not listened to, and subsequently the plebiscite was agreed to. Many months elapsed before the Supreme War Council ventured to carry out the plan in view of the disturbed conditions that prevailed, for which the Germans were almost exclusively responsible. In some districts the Poles were successful and in others the Germans. In many districts where the latter were successful it was the new settlers brought in in the manner I have described who carried the day.

These districts of mixed population presented undoubtedly a very thorny problem, but in this instance the ends of justice were most certainly not attained.]