Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
1
Chapters
81
Words
89.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
7 h, 27 m
House had sent to Mr. Root some weeks ago the draft of the racial-equality provision which Baron Makino wishes to have inserted in the Preamble, or attached to some appropriate Article of the Covenant. Here is Root’s answer, at least in paraphrase: “Don’t let it in, it will breed trouble. In any event, you’re going to have hard sledding, but with the racial provision, you will get nowhere in the Senate. And the people . . . ? On the Pacific coast, at least, they would think there lurked…- 91.2 K • Completed
- House had a long talk with Clemenceau today and they made me sit in with them. House told the Tiger that while Wilson thought it was quite unnecessary, the matter of possible invasion being fully covered by the terms of the Covenant, he would fight for the Rhine Agreement. In a general way he told the Tiger that the President was heartsick over some of the compromises he had been compelled to make, but that now he would not yield another inch either at home or abroad. The Tiger then went on to admit that…
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- Some of the French writers, and this is natural enough, and some of the American correspondents, and this I think is not as it should be, are making labored jokes over the quick work of the Covenant Commission. They admit that the world, according to Genesis, was created in six days, but they contend in those days supernatural assistance was available. “Things are different now, but all the same Wilson and House have been fast workers. In ten committee meetings they have reshaped the world.” In view…
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- Today, to our immense relief, the Conference in Plenary Session approved the amended Covenant with the Monroe Doctrine reservation. The great salle was chockablock with dynamite, but thanks to the masterly handling of the situation by Clemenceau none of it was touched off. Hughes, the weird little Prime Minister of Australia, was simply bursting with an anti-League, anti-Japanese speech, and M. Bourgeois was all primed to advance once again his demand, so frequently rejected in the Commission, for an…
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- The President secured, in the Committee at least, the Monroe Doctrine reservation and also the amendment to the Covenant which permits the powers to withdraw from the League and escape its responsibilities on two years’ notice. It is a victory which Senators in Washington, both supporters and opponents of the Treaty, say will smooth the path to ratification, but it cannot be denied that both these changes have weakened the President’s position here. It is true, of course, that none of the powers…
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- Two of the most bitterly contested batdes over the final shape of the Covenant were not fought out in the closed sessions of the Commission but in the Colonel’s study and conference salle which, with a touch of characteristic humor, he called his “cloakroom,” for as usual it was the silent man from Texas who bore the brunt of the struggle, and was only concerned to escape public notice much less acclaim; the praise of his chief and of his conscience for him was reward enough. These…
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- Much appears in the press, and there is even more talk in the corridors of the Crillon and the other meeting places of the delegates, in regard to what is termed the President’s stubborn determination to “intertwine or interweave” the Covenant with the Treaty. If there has been a struggle on this point, as many claim, I did not know anything about it-and this seems strange. The “intertwining” was definitely decided upon in the conferences which took place between House and Lord Robert Cecil about…
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- The British want to make some changes even at this late hour in the Covenant when everyone has agreed to sign it with his John Hancock in its present form. They want to have the words “Members of the League” inserted instead of “States, Members,” etc. Lord Robert Cecil writes that the change would merely correct a failure on the part of the drafting committee to express what was obviously the sense and purpose of the Commission. “If all members (of the Committee) agree, it would not…
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- While it is still feared by some that there will be a shindy later on in the Plenary Session, the selection of the minor powers to be represented on the Council of the League has been more easily arrived at than was to be expected. First off, a subcommittee of the delegates was named, composed of Vesnitch, Venizelos, and Bourgeois; House was to preside, but owing to pressure of work he asked Miller to sit for him. But, while he had great confidence in Miller’s tact, the Colonel could not keep from…
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- The fact that John Bull is out for a bargain, and, as it appears, a pretty sharp bargain at that, has been apparent ever since the President returned from Washington with his belated appreciation of the power of the Senate and with the peremptory demand of a group of Senators to secure the Monroe Doctrine reservation. At first this change of course was revealed but certainly not stressed by a remark here, and a suggestion there, which left no trace and most certainly could not be ascribed to an official…
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